Coastal Jazz Association of Savannah
Hall of Fame
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| Teddy Adams |
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Teddy Adams
Trombonist, arranger, composer, and lecturer are talents that describe Teddy Adams. Born in Savannah, Georgia on August 20, 1941, Teddy began playing in elementary school and started playing professional jobs as early as high school. From 1956-1960, Teddy performed with the James Drayton Organ Combo, Bobby Dilworth and the Blazers, the Clay White Band, the Walter Langston Orchestra, Val Davis and the Blue Notes, Claude Roberts and the Jazz Messengers, and the Metronomes. In 1959, he was honored as being the most promising musician/ trombonist in Savannah by the AFM, Local 704 Musicians Union.
A four year music scholarship to Florida A&M University was postponed to pursue a music career, however, other forces steered Teddy to the U. S. Air Force where he fine tuned his music craft for several years in various Air Force bands throughout the U.S. and Asia. After being stationed in Washington D.C. and playing with musicians such as Bobby Timmons, Jimmy Hopps and Wilbur Ware, Teddy spent eleven years in Asia with his major concentration taking place in Tokyo, Japan with a two year stint in Bangkok, Thailand.
While being stationed and living in Tokyo, Teddy attended a music conservatory started by Japan's premier musician, Sadao Watanabe. Also while in Japan, Teddy performed with Rufus Reid, Blue Mitchell, Art Blakey, and Abbey Lincoln.
After returning to the U.S. in 1976, he teamed up with Bassist, Ben Tucker and co-led a mainstream jazz group called the Telfair Jazz Society. Since then Teddy has performed with other greats that include: Cab Calloway, Irene Reid, James Moody, Clark Terry, Jeanie Bryson, Johnny Lytle, Joey DeFrancesco, Ernie Andrews, Wynard Harper, Ben Riley, Doug Carn, Dave Steinmeyer, Pete Minger, Delbert Felix, to name a few. Teddy is presently teaching, lecturing and leading his own group. He also is on the Board of Directors for the Coastal Jazz Association, co-leads the Savannah Jazz Orchestra, and is one of the first inductees in the Savannah/ Coastal Jazz Association Hall of Fame.
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| Nathaniel "Nat" Allen |
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Nathaniel "Nat" Allen
Nat Allen was born in Savannah on August 13, 1913. Allen was a superb trombonist who played with the Al Cutter Snappy Six Band from 1930-33. He later joined the Sunset Royal Entertainers Orchestra of Miami to perform at the Apollo Theater, Savoy Ballroom, New York City.
Nat Allen joined the Louis Armstrong/Luis Russell orchestra to perform throughout America and Europe. He can be seen performing with the Russell-Armstrong Orchestra in the classic movie "New Orleans."
Allen traveled extensively with Sarah Vaughn and Pearl Bailey as a member of the Ralph Materie Orchestra.
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| Lee L. Blair |
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Lee L. Blair
The history of jazz banjo is as old as jazz itself. Lee L. Blair was born in Savannah on October 10, 1903, and became a mostly self-taught, left-handed banjo/guitarist. A fine rhythmic player who was active in the 1920's and had a career that spanned for 40 years.
His first professional job of importance was c. 1926-28 with Jelly Roll Morton. Blair worked with Charlie Skeete (1926-28) and more importantly Jelly Roll Morton at Rose Danceland in New York (1928-30) with whom he also recorded. After spending some time in Billy Kato's band (1930-31), Blair joined Luis Russell in 1934, staying with his orchestra after it was taken over by Louis Armstrong the following year. Departing in 1940, Blair primarily played part-time until he became a member of Wilbur DeParis' New New Orleans Jazz Band in the 1950's. Blair recorded with Morton, Russell, Armstrong, DeParis, Dick Cary, Pee Wee Erwin, Leonard Gaskin (1962) and others. Lee Blair toured with Morton and cut several records with Morton's celebrated Red Hot Peppers. Through most of the 1930s he was with Luis Russell, who backed Louis Armstrong.
He worked with Wilbur de Paris in the 1950s, including a tour of Africa in 1957. Lee Blair died in New York on October 15, 1966.
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| Lucius Bryant, Jr. |
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Lucius Bryant, Jr.
1924 - 1963
Savannah is a city known for its strong tradition of Jazz drummers. At the forefront is Lucius Bryant, Jr., who is considered Savannah's first modern drummer. Lucius personified the bridge that separated and connected the old and new school of drumming in Savannah.
In addition to being recognized as the "Dean" of modern drumming, he was also one of the first local musicians to attend a music conservatory (Boston Conservatory of Music). After this conservatory training, Lucius returned to Savannah in 1955 and opened the Lucius Bryant School of Modern Drumming, located next to the local Musicians Union, AFM 704, on West Broad Street(later renamed Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd).
He remained in Savannah teaching and playing until he returned to Boston in 1958.
Mr. Bryants' talent as a drummer and innovator was highly respected in Boston, Massachusetts, where he lived until his demise in 1963. All of Boston's premier drummers, who included in their midst the great Alan Dawson, looked to him as a beacon of enlightenment while he lived there. Lucius Bryant, Jr. studied piano and also was a vocalist on many engagements. A stint in the United States Navy helped to prepare him for the task he pursued throughout his life that of being an innovator on drums and of passing his knowledge to others by teaching and playing.
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| Theron 'Ike' Carter |
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Theron "Ike" Carter
January 9, 1941
Theron ‘Ike’ Carter, educator, Jazz advocate and Jazz radio Station Manager, was born in Savannah at Charity Hospital on January 9, 1941. He was educated in the public school system of Savannah, attending East Broad Elementary School, Cuyler Junior High, and he entered A. E. Beach High School in 1955, where he was a member of the marching band and the concert band.
It was at Beach High School that he developed his life-long love for African-American Classical music (Jazz). This love was nurtured under the tutelage of Mr. Raymond Washington, a biology and chemistry teacher, who would bring records from his extensive collection and play them during lunch period for interested students. These sessions also included discussions regarding the history and evolution of the music.
In 1958, Ike Carter entered Howard University in Washington, D.C., where his exposure to jazz was expanded. After college, Carter spent four years in the U. S. Air Force, and then began a career in sales and marketing that allowed him to travel the U.S.A. extensively and abroad, furthering his exposure to diverse forms of Jazz. While living in Baltimore, MD, Carter was invited to join the “Left Bank Jazz Society.” It was also in Baltimore that he began his ‘second career’ in broadcasting on Morgan State University¹s radio station, where he started his program, “Impressions.”
After moving back to Savannah in 1988, he volunteered at Savannah StateUniversity’s WHCJ, doing two Jazz programs, “Impressions” and “Legendary Profiles”
In 1990, he became General Manager of WHCJ.
At Savannah State, Carter began to lecture to classes on Jazz history. Those lectures expanded to include Savannah public schools and the various heritage festivals. In 1993, he became President of the Coastal Jazz Association, the producers of the annual Savannah Jazz Festival. The festival has brought many of the greatest artists in the history of the music to Savannah.
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| Samarai Celestial |
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Samarai Celestial (Eric Walker)
1954 - 1997
Drummer Samarai Celestial, aka Eric Walker, was born in Savannah, Georgia, on November 28, 1954. He is a product to the public school system,where he started playing the trumpet and later switched to drums. Although he credits several musicians for showing interest and allowing him to play, he is almost a self-taught drummer.
While in Savannah, Samarai's early playing was quite varied. It included stints with Bobby Lewis and The Royal Entertainers, Sam Gill, and Lil' Willie and the Show Stoppers. Then on to Atlanta, where he played with Life Force, Duke Pearson, Z.Z. Hill, and a host of others. Again he found himself at home, where he became the first drummer with the Telfair Jazz Society, a resurgence jazz group that was started by trombonist Teddy Adams and bassist Ben Tucker. The formation of the Telfair Jazz Society served as an ignition to another era of fine jazz in Savannah.
Samarai has also performed with some of the greats in the jazz arena that include Kid Jordan, Alvin Batiste, Ellis Marsalis, Earl Turbington, David Murray, Ogeda Penn, and Butch Cornell. Perhaps his most rewarding and influential experience came from a 14-year association as percussionist for Sun Ra and his Arkestra. Not only was that experience a spiritual awakening, but an introduction to the music of the "Cosmos." It was Sun Ra who told him the Creator of the Universe had given him the name Samarai Celestial. Samarai's long association with Sun Ra not only indoctrinated him into the "cosmic" music of the universe, but supplied the energy and foresight to carry on Sun Ra's tradition and legacy, even after Sun Ra's death in 1993.
Samarai is a poly-rhythmic and creative percussionist who can play either "inside" or "outside" the music. While with Sun Ra, he literally toured the world spreading the cosmic music message to both South and North America, the Middle East, Japan, and Europe. Before moving back to Savannah, Samarai was a powerful force on the Knoxville, Tennessee, music scene, including important associations is with pianist/composer Donald Brown. He has recorded two CDs with Brown titled, "People Music" and "Send One Your Love." Samarai appeared with the Donald Brown Sextet at the 1993 Savannah Jazz Festival. At age 39, he is the youngest Coastal Jazz Association Hall of Famer to be inducted to date.
Mr. Celestial died on November 23, 1997 at the age of 42.
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| Charlie Chisholm |
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Charlie Chisholm
Charlie Chisholm was born in Savannah in 1927. He spent the first fourteen years of his life here before his family moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he began to play the trumpet. Although he has lived in Philadelphia for fifty-four years, Charlie has always acknowledged Savannah as his hometown.
Charlie Chisholm is a multi-faceted artist. In addition to playing trumpet and flugelhorn, he is an educator, conductor, arranger, promoter, and historian. He has worked with such great jazz artists as John Coltrane, Benny Golson, and Ray Bryant. Charlie has attained the status of "living legend" in Philadelphia.
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| Al Cutter |
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Al Cutter
Georgia, though far from the jazz centers of New Orleans, Louisiana, Chicago, Illinois, and New York City, produced some of the most important swing musicians of the big band era. Many of these gained their fame after migrating to northern urban centers, but the musicians who stayed in the South contributed to the thriving swing scene in Savannah during the 1930s and 1940s.
Bands come and bands go. Always have and always will. But one band that stayed together for over two decades was the famous "SNAPPY SIX" band led by Al Cutter. Al Cutter was a saxophonist and leader of The Snappy Six which played all over Savannah during the 1930's, 1940's, and 1950's. Leader Cutter was an outstanding saxophonist and leader who held the band together, although the composition changed over the years. They were good, The Snappy Six. Playing before black audiences and white ones, too, in those non-integrated times, The Snappy Six played many a dance or cotillion at the old Desoto Hotel, the Savannah Hotel, or the old General Oglethorpe Hotel on Wilmington Island (which is now the Sheraton Inn of Savannah). Leader Cutter was supported by an outstanding array of players consisting of pianist Herman Quillian, Raymond Snype on trumpet, bassist Tom Scott, Bob Mumford on drums, Larry Noble, and another player by the name of "Palmer." As groups frequently do, the personnel might change from year to year, or from gig to gig but The Snappy Six remained and cheered many an audience, a dance, or a concert with their spirited and fine playing.
With the honoring of the late Al Cutter, we also honor all of the fine gentlemen who comprised The Snappy Six, and hold in our hearts and memories a special place for them in Savannah jazz history.
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| Joseph "Val" Davis |
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Val Davis
Varnell Joseph “Val” Davis first became devoted to jazz watching by watching films of the great bands that played at the Star Theater on West Broad Street in Savannah. He was particularly attracted to the drums. His father carved a pair of drum sticks for him and he began to play wherever and whenever he could. On top of that, as a student at Saint Anthony and Saint Mary Schools, his good voice placed him in the school choirs.
As a young man he enlisted in the U.S. Army and quickly found out that playing in military bands was a “good gig.” He shipped out to Okinawa, and learned that the ship’s band needed a string bass player, and, though not a bassist and unable to sight read music, he located an instrument on the ship and quickly mastered its rudiments.
After discharge from the army in 1951, Mr. Davis returned to Savannah in 1951. Shortly, he re-enlisted; his time in the U.S. Air Force. Here he learned to read music. During this time he played in military bands, including a 75 piece Air Force “Big Band in Omaha Nebraska. While playing drums in the ensemble, he also played in a smaller group with Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, a talented alto saxophonist and singer. With big bands and small groups he backed up singers such as Nancy Wilson and Clarinetist Buddy Defranco.
After playing at military bases ranging from Omaha to Alaska, he retired from the military and played around Savannah with virtually all of the accomplished jazz players and groups of the 1960s and 1970s. A few of them included saxophonist Buby McMillian, vocalists Billy Austin & Stella Storms, and guitarist Ray Lewis. He played the Elks Club and Joe’s Blue Room: two prominent black clubs. As integration began to occur, he played with aspiring white artists such as Ken Palmer and ultimately inspired drummer Sprague Exley and others.
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| Frank Dilworth, Jr. |
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Frank Dilworth, Jr.
Mr. Frank Dilworth, Jr. is a distinguished name in Savannah's musical history, having been the owner of "Dilworth's Entertainments," a musical booking house which regularly brought the greatest names in American entertainment to Savannah stages. Louis Armstrong, Earl "Fatha" Hines, Cab Calloway, The Ink Spots, Ella Fitzgerald and Chick Webb, Pearl Bailey, Erskine Hawkins, Rolly Randolph, Ruth Brown, Tiny Bradshaw, and many, many others were regularly brought to Savannah by Frank Dilworth. As general agent for Savannah's performing musicians, he regularly booked from his offices on old West Broad Street where in its heyday, thirteen employees worked artists who appeared at white and black clubs in the area such as Al Remler's, Johnny Harris', and Braswell's Manhattan Club. He also booked acts for the old Tybrisa Pavillion (he tells many charming stories about the old Tybrisa's glory days) and, of course, at the old and long gone City Auditorium. In many ways he and Mrs. Dilworth are oral encyclopedias of an era when Savannah was an important link on the "East Coast Tour" of the great bands and performers, and they can tell stories almost endlessly of the people they have known and the history of Savannah jazz.
It was Frank Dilworth who befriended the great Joe "King" Oliver and brought him to Savannah, where he spent the last two years of his life. Almost flat broke and alone in Spartanburg, S.C., the King called Dilworth from a pay phone, explaining his plight and circumstances. What happened after that is quite amazing in that Mr. Dilworth hopped in his Pace-Arrow automobile and picked the King up, even arranging to tow his bus to Savannah, and brought him to our city, arranging for medical care and decent lodging for Oliver during his stay here between 1937 and 1938. And it was also Mr. Frank Dilworth who made the phone call to Louis Armstrong telling him of his "Papa's" death, and making the initial arrangements for his burial. For this essential act of humanity alone, he is deserting of his place in Savannah's and America's history.
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| Willie Draper |
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Willie Draper
Draper...Willie Draper...The stuff of legends. He seems the man has no other name. Draper...Willie Draper.
Psychologists like to use word association tests as part of their stock and trade. "What comes to mind when I say the name 'Draper,'" says Dr. Freud.
"Well," says I, "brilliant...talented...unpredictable...off-the wall ...loquacious...frustrating...lovable...warm...special.
All of these descriptors and more can be applied to Mr. Willie Draper, a saxophonist of tremendous talent, who could literally play name players off the stage; a mentor to a generation of talented Savannah players; and a friend to Savannah's best musicians who has never really left his Savannah roots.
Draper. . .Willie Draper. Let the man talk about himself a little Teddy (good friend Teddy Adams): You asked me to tell you a little bit about myself. I have led groups over the years. I have been a side man with a lot of cats. . . Earl Bostic, Preston Love, Sonny Stitt, Phineas Newborn Jr., James Brown, Little Richard, Etta James, etc.
You name it, I've been there.
P.S. Nothing too hip to brag about.
Nothing too hip, indeed! Willie Draper has played with the best and has always more than held his own. A native Savannahian, he more or less grew up between Savannah and Hardeville, S.C. He can even claim Mr. W.W. Law as his scoutmaster from his youth! He has attended Savannah State College (two years) and also continued his music education at the Cleveland Institute of Music (two years) and at Rhuby's Conservatory. He has played all over Savannah in clubs long gone like Pete's City and Bop City, as well as the legendary "Conservatory of Music" over Joe's Restaurant and Pool Room on Barnard Street
Draper...Willie Draper. There simply is no other like him.
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| Samuel Gill |
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Samuel Gill
For Sam Gill, it was love at first sight when as a young lad he heard the Goldman Band play at Prospect Park in Brooklyn, N.Y. "I listened to this little guy playing trumpet," said Sam, "and I knew that instrument was for me. My mother bought me my first horn a hot little number and I went out and bought myself some "how to" books, and the rest is history." History indeed, and Sam Gill has dazzled audiences far and wide with his mastery of his first love. Born in 1917 in Savannah, Sam was educated in local public schools, playing around the city at an early age. Sam remembers meeting the great Joe "King" Oliver. "He was sick and well beyond his prime and actually did little playing here. But even then I knew of him and what he represented to jazz." Taking his talent beyond Savannah, Sam played with Edith Curry out of New Orleans and early on toured the South and the nation in a number of settings, including The Royal American Shows and the Ringling Brothers Circus.
Road travel can be a terribly hard life, according to Sam; and he returned to Savannah, where he taught music and band at Tompkins and Beach Highs for a period of ten years, and where he was band director at Savannah State College for twenty-three years. During this time, he was active in bands, backing up some of the great names in American music, such as Glen Campbell, Sonny & Cher, and Tom Jones (when he appeared early in his career at the old Bijou Theater on Broughton Street). He also played trumpet for the Savannah Symphony in 1966, and has had many gigs with his own and other small bands through the years. He is still very active locally and at Hilton Head, where he now resides, and is much in demand for the concert and club scene.
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| Bobby Greene |
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Bobby Greene
Bobby Greene, saxophonist, lecturer, Professor of Music, radio D.J., arranger, composer, and superb all-around musician, was raised and attended public schools in Savannah. He was a graduate of Tompkins High School (Woodville High School). Bobby was something of a child prodigy and at a very early age showed great love and talent for playing jazz music. Along with trombonist Teddy Adams, Bobby started seriously studying and playing jazz in high school.
Greene taught jazz in Southeastern Massachusetts University's music program, as well as at the New England Conservatory. He used the saxophone to its fullest potential, moving from gentle melodic runs in whisper-soft tones to screechingly loud emotion-packed solos. His playing was a study in dynamics, intonation, and improvisation.
Bobby Greene died of cancer on December 30, 1991, in Boston.
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