Kid Thomas Valentine

Thomas Valentine , called Kid Thomas (Valentine) (born February 3, 1896 in Reserve (Louisiana) , † June 18, 1987 in New Orleans ), was an American jazz trumpeter and bandleader of New Orleans jazz .

Kid Thomas came to New Orleans in his youth, played in the Pickwick Brass Band (1910), earned a reputation as a hot trumpeter and formed a band with Edmond Hall and other members of his family in 1914. Since 1926 he led his own band (Algiers Stompers), which played mainly in the suburb of Algiers on the other side of the Mississippi. In contrast to most other jazz musicians, he kept his blues-tinged dance band style of New Orleans of the pre- Armstrong era even later. He found a larger following in New Orleans in the 1950s; He made the first recordings in 1951. In 1960 and 1961 he was recorded under his own name for the series New Orleans: The Living Legends by Riverside ; since 1961 he played regularly in the Preservation Hall . He toured Europe and once in the Soviet Union with Preservation Hall orchestras. He often played with George Lewis . Also in the 1960s he recorded with his own band and with Big Bill Bissonnette's Easy Riders Jazz Band (with whom he toured a lot) at Jazz Crusade . He was still leading bands in the Preservation Hall in the 1980s, but mostly left the playing to the trumpeter Wendell Brunious. He can also be heard on recordings by Jim Robinson , Captain John Handy and Dee Dee Pierce .

literature

• Ian Carr , Digby Fairweather , Brian Priestley The Rough Guide to Jazz. London: Rough Guide 2004
• Leonard Feather , Ira Gitler : The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. Oxford University Press, New York 1999, ISBN 0-19-532000-X .
• Brian Morton , Richard Cook The Penguin Jazz Guide: The History of the Music in the 1000 Best Albums. London: Penguin 2010

Web links

• biography