Kansas City Jazz - A Little Evil Will Do You Good - Con Chapman
Trombones
Kansas City Jazz - A Little Evil Will Do You Good - Con Chapman
Con Chapman [+]
Music writer
Con Chapman is the author of Rabbit’s Blues: The Life and Music of Jonny Hodges (Oxford University Press, 2019), winner of the 2019 Book of the Year Award by Hot Club de France, and a 2020 Certificate of Merit for Best Historical Research from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections. His writing on jazz has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, Syncopated Times, and Brilliant Corners, among other publications.
Description
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.