Joe Thomas (Trumpeter)

Joe Thomas, New York City, circa September 1947. Photograph by William P. Gottlieb

Joseph Lewis "Joe" Thomas (* 24. July 1909 in Webster Grover , Missouri ; † 6. August 1984 in New York City ) is an American jazz trumpeter of Swing , which often with his saxophone colleagues because of his relaxed, reclined game Lester Young was compared .

Life

Thomas played in Territory bands in the Midwest since the late 1920s , such as Cecil Scott and Darrell Harris. He then moved to New York, where he first worked with Ferman Tapp and Charlie Turner from 1933, before joining the Fletcher Henderson orchestra in 1934 , with which he stayed until 1937, when he joined Willie Bryant and Claude Hopkins (1938 / 39) to switch. Then he belonged to Benny Carter's band, only to found his own group, which did not last long. In the next few years he had permanent engagements with James P. Johnson , Joe Sullivan , Teddy Wilson and Barney Bigard , of whom the collaboration with Wilson is considered particularly fruitful. From the mid-1940s he led his own bands, such as his group Black Butterfly , with whom he also accompanied his wife, the singer Babe Mathews, and made recordings. He then worked for Cozy Cole (1948) and Bud Freeman (1949). Over the next several years he performed with Coleman Hawkins and a Fletcher Henderson Reunion Band led by Rex Stewart . He was heard with the Chicago All Stars at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1964 , and then performed with Eddie Condon (1964/65), JC Higginbotham and Claude Hopkins. For health reasons, he then withdrew from the music business.

Thomas is documented on some recordings under his own name (some of which are now published by Riverside Records ), but was mainly involved in recordings by other musicians. Records by Louis Armstrong , Art Tatum , Fats Waller , Pete Brown , Red Norvo , Tony Scott , George Wettling , Don Byas and Joe Marsala contain scale recordings of the trumpeter. Miles Davis compared the critically underrated Thomas in his performance with Freddie Webster .

The trumpeter is not to be confused with the tenor saxophonist Joe Thomas of the same name , who u. a. played in the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra.

Lexigraphic entries

• Carlo Bohländer , Karl Heinz Holler: Reclams Jazzführer (= Reclams Universal Library. No. 10185/10196). Reclam, Stuttgart 1970, ISBN 3-15-010185-9 .
• Leonard Feather , Ira Gitler : The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. Oxford University Press, New York 1999, ISBN 0-19-532000-X .
• Martin Kunzler : Jazz Lexicon. Volume 2: M – Z (= rororo-Sachbuch. Vol. 16513). 2nd Edition. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-499-16513-9 .
• Dennis Owsley: City of Gabriels: The History of Jazz in St. Louis, 1895-1973 . 2006.

Web links

• Joe Thomas at Allmusic (English)