Valaida Snow

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Valaida Snow (born June 2, 1904 as Valada Snow in Chattanooga , Tennessee , † May 30, 1956 in New York ) was an American jazz trumpeter and singer . She was one of the first women to carry jazz around the globe and performed with Louis Armstrong , among others , who once described her as the “second best” jazz trumpeter in the world after himself.

Live and act

Valaida Snow was trained to be a multi-instrumentalist at a very early age, with a focus on piano, violin, singing, dance and trumpet. She formed a vocal quartet with her three sisters, Lavada, Alvada, and Hattie and toured the United States and the Far East during the 1920s and early 1930s. In 1934 she made her first recording with Noble Sissle and a short time later another with Earl Hines . From 1936 to 1942 she worked in Europe, where she also recorded her first record under her own name; later she worked with English swing and dance bands until 1938. She then moved to Denmark and continued her career with Scandinavian musicians.

In mid-March 1942, Snow was arrested by the Copenhagen police and spent ten weeks in Copenhagen's Vestre Fængsel prison, interrupted by a month's hospital stay. In May 1942 she was accompanied by two Danish police officers to Gothenburg, where she spent five days in the custody of the Swedish police before she returned to the States with 193 other refugees on board the SS Gripsholm and arrived in New Jersey on June 9, 1942 . In the years that followed, Valaida Snow claimed that she had spent several months in Nazi concentration camps. The facts do not support this.

In the same year she appeared for the first time in the Apollo Theater . It was a big crowd favorite in Canada too.

Valaida Snow had a powerful full trumpet tone, which is strongly reminiscent of Louis Armstrong, but was seldom heard because she appeared more as a singer. Mary Lou Williams believed that Snow, who could blow a brilliant high C, had the potential to be "one of the greats on her instrument" if she had focused on the trumpet.

A good impression of her skills on the trumpet can be obtained from the recordings I Got Rhythm from July 9, 1937 and My Heart Belongs to Daddy from August 28, 1938 as well as on the soundies with the Ali Baba Trio (1946) and two feature films made in France , L'Alibi (1936) with the Bobby Martin orchestra and Pieges with the Freddie Johnson orchestra . She also performed with Maurice Chevalier . In the Netherlands, Queen Wilhelmina gave her a golden trumpet for her achievements.

Valaida Snow was a singer, actress, choreographer, conductor, dancer, multi-instrumentalist, spoke several languages ​​and made her way from a poor background to a successful person in show business. She later put this success at the service of charity events. She suffered a massive cerebral haemorrhage on May 8, 1956 - a few hours after a trumpet gig - and did not wake up from the resulting coma. She was buried on her fifty-second birthday.

Melba Liston , who lists Snow as one of her role models and played with her in a theater band (Lincoln's Theater) in Los Angeles around 1945, mentioned in an interview the bad treatment she received from male orchestra members.

Discographic notes

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mark Miller: High Hat, Trumpet and Rhythm - The Life and Music of Valaida Snow. The Mercury Press, Toronto 2007.
  2. ↑ Liston interview in Linda Dahl Stormy Weather , Limelight 1996, p. 257

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Snow, Valaida
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Snow, Valada (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz trumpeter and singer
DATE OF BIRTH June 2, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Chattanooga , Tennessee , USA
DATE OF DEATH May 30, 1956
Place of death New York City , New York , USA