Lovie Austin

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Lovie Austin (* 19th September 1887 in Chattanooga , Tennessee , as Cora Calhoun ; † 10. July 1972 in Chicago ) was an American blues - and jazz - pianist , arranger and composer during the classic blues era of the 1920s.

Live and act

Lovie Austin was a popular Chicago band leader, session musician, composer, and arranger during the classic blues era of the 1920s. She and Lil Hardin are often referred to as the most important jazz / blues pianists of this period. Mary Lou Williams counted Lovie Austin among her most important influences.

Austin studied music theory at Roger Williams University and Knoxville College in Nashville , Tennessee . In 1923, Lovie Austin moved to Chicago , where she lived and worked for the rest of her life. At the beginning of her career she worked in vaudeville shows as a pianist and actress. She later accompanied many blues singers and has appeared on recordings by Ma Rainey ("Moonshine Blues"), Ida Cox ("Wild Women Don't Have The Blues"), Ethel Waters ("Craving Blues") and Alberta Hunter ("Sad 'n' Lonely Blues ”). Austin also had his own band, the Blues Serenaders , in which trumpeters Tommy Ladnier , Bob Shoffner, Natty Dominique , or Shirley Clay on the cornet, trombonist Kid Ory or Albert Wynn on the trombone, and Jimmy O'Bryant or Johnny Dodds on the Clarinet took part.

Austin also worked with jazz musicians of the 1920s such as Louis Armstrong . Austin's talent as a songwriter can be heard in her classic composition Down Hearted Blues , a piece she wrote with Alberta Hunter. Singer Bessie Smith made it a hit in 1923. Austin was also a session musician for Paramount Records .

In the early 1930s, Lovie Austin was the musical director of the Monogram Theater , in Chicago, where she worked for the next 20 years. After the Second World War she was a pianist at Jimmy Payne's dance school in the Penthouse Studios and only performed occasionally. In 1961 the album Alberta Hunter with Lovie Austin's Blues Serenaders was created as part of the Riverside's Living Legends series . Her best known songs were " Sweet Georgia Brown ", " C Jam Blues " and "Gallon Stomp".

Selection discography

  • Lovie Austin: 1924-1926
  • Alberta Hunter with Lovie Austin's Blues Serenaders

Web links / sources

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Santelli, Robert. The Big Book of Blues , Penguin Books, page 20, (2001) - ISBN 0-14-100145-3
  2. ↑ Dahl, Linda. Morning Glory: A Biography of Mary Lou Williams , Pantheon Books, page 29, (2000) - ISBN 0-375-40899-1
  3. ↑ Zieff, Bob. Lovie Austin. in Kernfeld, Barry. ed. The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd Edition, Vol. 1. London: MacMillan, p. 93, (2002)
  4. ↑ Laird, Ross. Moanin 'Low: A Discography of Female Popular Vocal Recordings, 1920-1933, Greenwood Press, page 110, (1996) - ISBN 0-313-29241-8
  5. ↑ Cullen, Frank. Vaudeville, Old and New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America , Routledge, p. 48, (2006) - ISBN 0-415-93853-8
personal data
SURNAME Austin, Lovie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Calhoun, Cora
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz and blues pianist
DATE OF BIRTH September 19, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Chattanooga , Tennessee
DATE OF DEATH July 10, 1972
Place of death Chicago