Jimmie Lunceford and His Chickasaw Syncopators

Lunceford was born in Fulton, Mississippi.[1] Little is known about his parents, though his father was a choirmaster in Warren, Ohio, before the family moved to Denver. Lunceford went to high school in Denver and studied music under Wilberforce J. Whiteman, father of Paul Whiteman, whose band was soon to acquire a national reputation. As a child in Denver, he learned several instruments. He played alto saxophone in the band led by the violinist George Morrison. After high school, Lunceford continued his studies at Fisk University.[2] In 1922, he played alto saxophone in a local band led by George Morrison which included Andy Kirk, another musician destined for fame as a bandleader.

In 1927, while an athletic instructor at Manassas High School in Memphis, Tennessee, he organized a student band, the Chickasaw Syncopators, whose name was changed to the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra. Under the new name, the band started its professional career in 1929, and made its first recordings in 1930.[4] Lunceford was the first high school band director in Memphis. After a period of touring, the band accepted a booking at the Harlem nightclub The Cotton Club in 1934 for their revue 'Cotton Club Parade' starring Adelaide Hall.[5] [6] The Cotton Club had already featured Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway, who won their first widespread fame from their inventive shows for the Cotton Club's all-white patrons. Lunceford's orchestra, with their tight musicianship and the often outrageous humor in their music and lyrics, made an ideal band for the club, and Lunceford's reputation began to steadily grow.[7] Jimmie Luncefords band differed from other great bands of the time because their work was better known for its ensemble than its solo work. Additionally, he was known for using a two-beat rhythm, called the Lunceford two-beat, as opposed to the standard four-beat rhythm.[8] This distinctive "Lunceford style" was largely the result of the imaginative arrangements by trumpeter Sy Oliver, which set high standards for dance-band arrangers of the time.

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