Wellman Braud

Wellman Braud (* 25. January 1891 St. James Parish , Louisiana ; † 29. October 1966 in Los Angeles ) was an American jazz - bassist , best known as a member of the band of Duke Ellington .

Live and act

Braud came from a Creole family (sometimes spelling Breaux, Braud was pronounced “Bro” for this reason) and came to New Orleans at a young age , where he played violin and bass in his own trio in Storyville District (before 1910). In 1917, when the brothels in Storyville were closed due to violent incidents involving naval personnel, he moved, like many jazz musicians, to Chicago , where he worked with Lawrence Duhé . In 1923 he went to London with the "Plantation Orchestra", where he played the trombone in addition to the bass.

He then went to New York to join Wilbur Sweatman's band and switched to the Duke Ellington Orchestra in mid-1927 when the latter began to play at the Cotton Club in Harlem . Here he brought his experiences from New Orleans, in particular the "slapping" style of bass playing, an important contribution to the sound of the Ellington Orchestra at the time. The band's regular radio broadcasts were one of the reasons why the bass played in this way increasingly replaced the tuba as a rhythm instrument in dance bands, which Braud still used occasionally.

After leaving Ellington in early 1935 (the reasons are unclear, but then Ellington introduced two basses to his band) he briefly ran a club in Harlem with Jimmie Noone in 1936 and recorded the "Spirits of Rhythm" from 1935 to 1937. He then played in New York with his own group and with Kaiser Marshall , Hot Lips Page and Sidney Bechet . In 1944 he briefly returned to Ellington. From 1956 he played with Kid Ory for a long time . In the 1960s he was only occasionally active as a musician.

Duke Ellington paid tribute to the "so important role" of his longtime bassist with the title "Portrait of Wellman Braud", which is part of his New Orleans Suite (heard on the album of the same name from 1970).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Liner notes on the New Orleans Suite by Stanley Dance