Sonny Greer

Sonny Greer, 1943

William Alexander "Sonny" Greer (* 13. December 1895 in Long Branch , New Jersey ; † 23. March 1982 ) was an American jazz - drummer in the band of Duke Ellington .

life and work

Greer played with Elmer Snowden and in the band at the Howard Theater in Washington, DC before joining Duke Ellington (his Washingtonians , a quintet) in Washington in 1919 , in whose orchestra he then played intermittently until 1951. Only a few records have appeared with Sonny Greer as band leader, but Ellington and his musicians were ready to accompany his drummer for a session in May 1929 - probably also to make the musician better known. The resulting track "Saturday Night Function", the title of which refers to the rent parties common at the time , became a hit in November 1933 with # 14 in the Billboard Top 30 .

Greer was Ellington's first drummer for a long time (and also designed drums for a company in Indiana), but was also a heavy drinker and passionate pool player who sometimes had to leave parts of his extensive drum set at the pawnbroker. When Ellington hired a second drummer on the band's Scandinavian tour in 1950, it came to a break. Greer then worked with Johnny Hodges (1951), who like him had left the Ellington Band and founded a new band for a short time, Henry Red Allen , Tyree Glenn and various smaller formations in New York City , e.g. B. in The Embers and in the Metropole .

Even after the breakup, Ellington kept in touch with Greer, and he even kept him on the band's payroll in the 1970s. At that time he played z. B. in a duo with the pianist Brooks Kerr (where they played Ellington compositions) and in 1974 he played again at the tributes concerts for Ellington. Greer was not one of the most important rhythm musicians of his time (in the Ellington Band Duke Ellington himself was the best member of the rhythm group); However, his long commitment to Duke Ellington is based on the loyalty that Ellington showed to his earliest band members, in his unusual technical skills and in the various variable sound effects that Greer mastered for the different arrangements, especially for the jungle sound (for the he also used large gongs, tympani and a vibraphone).

Barney Bigard , Ben Webster , Otto Hardwick , Harry Carney , Rex Stewart , Sonny Greer, Wallace Jones (?), Ray Nance .
Photography by William P. Gottlieb .

literature

• Gerhard Klußmeier: Jazz in the Charts. Another view on jazz history. Liner notes and booklet for the 100 CD edition. Membrane International GmbH. ISBN 978-3-86735-062-4 .
• Martin Kunzler : Jazz Lexicon. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1988.
• Richard Cook , Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide of Jazz on CD . 6th edition. Penguin, London 2002, ISBN 0-14-051521-6 .
• Bielefeld catalog jazz. 2001.

Web links

• Greer at Drummerworld
• Biography and information at Allmusic (English)