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RELEASE DATE - 17 NOVEMBER 2025 The first full-length biography of a true giant of jazz Description Jazz legend Cootie Williams left home to start his career as a professional musician at the age of fifteen. In 1940, after eleven years as one of the major soloists with the Duke Ellington orchestra, Williams was lured away to the band of Benny Goodman, one of the most popular bands in the country. At the time, it was a controversial move—it was still taboo for African Americans to share the bandstand with white people. Current references to the move usually reduce it to a song written by Raymond Scott, "When Cootie Left the Duke." In reality, it was a seismic event. The Black press predicted Black bands would collapse from raids on their ranks. White musicians were afraid they would be put out of work. And the white press stirred up visions of Black musicians mixing with white women in the new landscape of integrated orchestras. The twenty years trumpeter Williams spent as a band leader (1942-1962) have been covered in only the barest of details. His involvement in politics and the civil rights movement have not been detailed before. An astute talent scout, Williams and his band launched the careers of Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, Earl “Bud” Powell, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, and Pearl Bailey. He also was the first to record the music of a young Thelonious Monk, using two of Monk's compositions (“Epistrophy” and “‘Round Midnight”) as theme songs for his band. Steven C. Bowie respectfully tells Williams’s story, from his Alabama ancestry onward, including many new details rediscovered from the historical archives of the African American press and those gleaned from the author’s interviews with his friends and colleagues.

James Brandon Lewis: Apple Cores Meant to post this as a CD.

Maybe he was a bit tired about the business part. He preferred the comfort of having a label situated close to his home. Besides that I don't think Norman Granz would have featured Tjader - he had Milt Jackson, and Tjader never was that close to the JATP vibe that permeated Pablo. Duncan Reid has a more favourable view of Zaentz in this respect. Read the book. Duncan deserves a few more sales for his work.

I approved a few "iffy" looking accounts today. I hope we don't get spammed like crazy but it's a chance we decided to take. I also blocked/banned several new accounts using the https://www.stopforumspam.com website, which tracks spammers' digital footprints.