Willis Young
Willis Handy "Billy" Young (* approx. 1872; † February 6, 1943 in Los Angeles ) was an American musician ( trumpet , trombone ) and music teacher, the father of the swing tenor saxophonist Lester Young .
Young came from a musical family in Woodville, Mississippi, and received musical training at the Tuskegee Institute in the 1880s . In the 1890s he played in brass bands ; around 1900 he lived in Lafourche near Thibodaux , where he played in the Eureka Brass Band (not to be confused with the Eureka Brass Band founded in New Orleans in the 1920s ). In 1908 he married Amelia Rhodes, from whom he soon separated; after another relationship that resulted in two children, he married Lizetta Teresa Johnson in 1908. The marriage had three children, Lester, Irma and Lee . During these years he was touring as a musician and teaching in different cities during the winter months. In the late 1910s he played the trombone in a septet directed by Arthur and Albert Verrett in Houma, Louisiana , in which Amos White also played.
Young and his wife separated in 1919; Then Willis Young moved with his children to Minneapolis in 1920 , where he married the saxophonist Mattie Stella Pilgrim, called Sarah († 1943) and with her founded a family band in which Lester Young played alto saxophone and drums. Despite purchasing a property in Natalbany, Louisiana in 1921, the family toured regularly; Young led various bands in the 1920s such as the Busy Bees or the New Orleans Strutters , who went on extensive tours with Carnival, Minstrel and Vaudeville troops in the area between Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia and Baltimore. He also organized the performances and wrote arrangements for the bands. Young, who was a multi-instrumentalist but mostly played the trumpet, taught his children Lester, Lee (later a professional jazz drummer) and their sister Irma in trumpet, saxophone and violin. In 1927 Lester Young left his father's group. As a music teacher, Willis Young had a significant influence on a number of jazz musicians, according to the Lester Young biographer Daniels; his students included u. a. Ben Webster , Cootie Williams (who played for Billy Young in 1925) and Clarence Williams . In 1927 he lived for a time in Minneapolis, then in Albuquerque and finally in Los Angeles, where he died in 1943.
According to Douglas Henry Daniels, Billy Young's family band influenced the popularization of the saxophone in jazz in the early 1920s.
Willis Young's grandson was the lawyer and NAACP -Funktionär James L. Tolbert .
literature
- Douglas Henry Daniels: Lester Leaps in: The Life and Times of Lester "Pres" Young , Boston, Beacon Press 1990
Individual evidence
- ^ Lewis Porter : Lester Young , p. 3
- ^ Alyn Shipton: Jazz Makers: Vanguards of Sound (section Lester Young)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Young, Willis |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Young, Willis Handy (full name); Young, Billy (nickname) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American jazz musician, band leader and music teacher |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1872 |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 6, 1943 |
| Place of death | los Angeles |