Willie Cook

Willie Cook (* 11. November 1923 in Tangipahoa , Louisiana ; † 22. September 2000 in Stockholm ) was an American jazz - trumpet player of Swing and played in the Duke Ellington Orchestra .

Live and act

Willie Cook grew up in Chicago and first learned the violin before switching to the trumpet as a teenager. He played in King Perry's band in the late 1930s , then in Jay McShann's band in the early 1940s . In 1942 he briefly had his own formation, went back to McShann; From 1943 to 1948 he worked in Earl Hines ' band , in 1948 with Edwin Wilcox and 1948/50 with Dizzy Gillespies Orchestra. He also worked with Jimmie Lunceford in 1949, Ella Fitzgerald , Johnny Hodges and for the first time in 1951 with Duke Ellington . As a regular member of the band he took part in its legendary Newport gig in 1956 and played on albums such as Such Sweet Thunder ; In 1959 he visited Europe with his orchestra, in 1960 he performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival , he also played with BB King and in 1957 with the pianist Billy Taylor ( Taylor Made Jazz ). In the late 1960s, Cook worked again with the Duke Ellington Orchestra (heard on The Intimacy of the Blues and the Studio Sessions ). After his partial retirement from the jazz scene from 1974 to 1978, he occasionally played with Count Basie and Clark Terry ; he can be heard on Basie albums Kansas City Six and Warm Breeze from 1981, on the latter as the sole soloist in the piece Cookie . In 1982 he moved to Sweden . There he worked with Alice Babs and Ernie Wilkins (to be heard on his Montreux album on Steeplechase )

literature

• John Jörgensen, Erik Wiedemann : Jazz Lexicon . Munich, mosaic, 1967.

Web links

• Willie Cook in the All music guide