35 Facts About Roy Eldridge

David Roy Eldridge, nicknamed "Little Jazz", was an American jazz trumpeter.

Eldridge was born on the North Side of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on January 30,1911, to parents Alexander, a wagon teamster, and Blanche, a gifted pianist with a talent for reproducing music by ear, a trait that Eldridge claimed to have inherited from her.

Roy Eldridge began playing the piano at the age of five; he claimed to have been able to play coherent blues licks at even this young age.

Roy Eldridge took up the drums at the age of six, taking lessons and playing locally.

Joe recognized his brother's natural talent on the bugle, which Roy Eldridge played in a local church band, and tried to convince Roy Eldridge to play the valved trumpet.

When Roy Eldridge began to play drums in his brother's band, Joe soon convinced him to pick up the trumpet, but Roy Eldridge made little effort to gain proficiency on the instrument at first.

From an early age, Roy Eldridge lacked proficiency at sight-reading, a gap in his musical education that would affect him for much of his early career, but he could replicate melodies by ear very effectively.

Roy Eldridge led and played in a number of bands during his early years, moving extensively throughout the American Midwest.

Roy Eldridge absorbed the influence of saxophonists Benny Carter and Coleman Hawkins, setting himself the task of learning Hawkins's 1926 solo on "The Stampede" in developing an equivalent trumpet style.

Roy Eldridge left home after being expelled from high school in ninth grade, joining a traveling show at the age of sixteen; the show soon folded and he was left in Youngstown, Ohio.

Roy Eldridge was then picked up by the "Greater Sheesley Carnival," but returned to Pittsburgh after witnessing acts of racism in Cumberland, Maryland that significantly disturbed him.

Roy Eldridge then played with a number of other territory bands, staying for a short while in Detroit before joining Speed Webb's band which, having garnered a degree of movie publicity, began a tour of the Midwest.

The ensemble was short-lived, and Roy Eldridge soon moved to Milwaukee, where he took part in a celebrated cutting contest with trumpet player Cladys "Jabbo" Smith, with whom he later became good friends.

Roy Eldridge moved to New York in November 1930, playing in various bands in the early 1930s, including a number of Harlem dance bands with Cecil Scott, Elmer Snowden, Charlie Johnson, and Teddy Hill.

Roy Eldridge laid down his first recorded solos with Teddy Hill in 1935, which gained almost immediate popularity.

Roy Eldridge recorded a number of small group sides with singer Billie Holiday in July 1935, including "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown to You", employing a Dixieland-influenced improvisation style.

In October 1935, Roy Eldridge joined Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra, playing lead trumpet and occasionally singing.

Roy Eldridge was back to playing in 1939, when he formed a ten-piece band that gained a residency at New York's Arcadia Ballroom.

Roy Eldridge was critical in changing the course of Krupa's big band from pop-oriented "schmaltz" to jazz.

One of Roy Eldridge's best known recorded solos is on a rendition of Hoagy Carmichael's tune, "Rockin' Chair", arranged by Benny Carter as something like a concerto for Roy Eldridge.

The JATP's organiser Norman Granz said that Roy Eldridge typified the spirit of jazz.

Roy Eldridge moved to Paris, France, in 1950 while on tour with Benny Goodman, before returning to New York in 1951 to lead a band at the Birdland jazz club.

Roy Eldridge additionally performed from 1952 until the early 1960s in small groups with Coleman Hawkins, Ella Fitzgerald and Earl Hines among others, and began to record for Granz at this time.

Roy Eldridge toured with Ella Fitzgerald from late 1963 until March 1965 and with Count Basie from July until September 1966 before returning to freelance playing and touring at festivals.

In 1960, Roy Eldridge participated, alongside Abbey Lincoln, Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, Kenny Dorham and others, in recordings by the Jazz Artists Guild, a short-lived grouping formed by Mingus and Max Roach as a reaction to the perceived commercialism of the Newport Festival.

Roy Eldridge became the leader of the house band at Jimmy Ryan's jazz club on Manhattan's West 54th Street for several years, beginning in 1969.

Roy Eldridge was incapacitated by a stroke in 1970, but continued to lead the group at Ryan's soon after and performing occasionally as a singer, drummer and pianist.

In 1971, Roy Eldridge was inducted into DownBeat magazine's Jazz Hall of Fame.

Roy Eldridge has a Queens street sign at Liberty Avenue, part of the Jazz Greats along the Van Wyck Expressway, which commemorates Queens as the home of jazz in the 1940s and '50s.

Roy Eldridge did however occasionally play the piano and can be heard as late as 1986 in an edition of Marian McPartland's "Piano Jazz" Roy Eldridge died at the age of 78 at the Franklin General Hospital in Valley Stream, New York, three weeks after the death of his wife, Viola.

Roy Eldridge was known for his fast style of playing, often executing blasts of rapid double-time notes followed by a return to standard time.

Roy Eldridge's fast playing and extensive development of the instrument's upper register were heavy influences on Dizzy Gillespie, who, along with Charlie Parker, brought bebop into existence.

Roy Eldridge could become antagonistic, particularly in the face of those he deemed racist.

Roy Eldridge occasionally found himself in trouble with women which included an incident that involved his being forced to sell his trumpet temporarily in order to reclaim a portion of the money that had been stolen from him by a woman with whom he had drunkenly spent the night.

Roy Eldridge is said to have developed a fiery temper later in life according to clarinettist Joe Muranyi.