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Book: Kansas City Jazz

Chapter: Trombones

DOI: 10.1558/equinox.44040

Blurb:

The trombone was a comic feature of circus sideshow bands, but it shed its novelty character as a result of its development by leading practitioners such as Jack Teagarden, an admirer of Louis Armstrong who brought a blues sensitivity to the instrument. He was a white man but could play in a Black mode, as attested to by the affinity that developed between him and Jimmy Harrison and Leo “Snub” Mosley, two leading African-American trombonists. Two Basie trombonists, William “Dicky” Wells and Dan Minor, are discussed along with other lesser-known trombone players from the region such as Thurston Maupins and Thamon Hayes.

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