Friday, June 24, 2011

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio: Homecoming: Jimmie Lunceford's Mississippi Blues Trail Marker Tribute

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio: Homecoming: Jimmie Lunceford's  Mississippi Blues Trail Marker Tribute



If You Want To Order An Autographed 11" x 17" Print Signed By "Tha Artivist" (Without The Watermarks) For Just $10 Plus $5 Shipping & Handling Then Go To The Following Link:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=MGV9NW232R7DE


To learn more about Jimmie Lunceford & The Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival Please Visit The Following Link: 
The Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival Needs Your Support...Give To Grow The Movement!
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=10544097+

Or you can mail us a money order:
Attn: Ronald Herd II
P.O. Box 752062
Memphis,TN 38175

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

"The Lunceford Way" Print Signed By 'Tha Artivist' For Only $20...Gets Yours Today!!!

"The Lunceford Way" by r2c2h2 (6/1/2011, 30" x 40" ink pen and whiteout)
 
"The Lunceford Way" Print Signed By 'Tha Artivist' For Only $20...Gets Yours Today!!!


About "The Lunceford Way"

 This is my tribute to Jazz Legend Jimmie Lunceford who was the first high school band director and started music education in The Memphis City Schools back in the 1920s. He was not even hired to be a music instructor but yet believed in the power of music to change lives and wanted to share his passions with young people...He took his band, composed of his best high school students and buddies from Fisk University, left Memphis and became the house band at the famous Cotton Club...His orchestra was also the number one attraction at the legendary Apollo Theatre for a decade and was known as the Harlem Express, the number one band of choice for African Americans IN THE NATION DURING THE 1930s AND THE 1940s...He Was Known As The King Of The Battle Of The Bands Because His Orchestra Would Constantly Beat Those Lead By Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller in popularity contests and cut throat competition...


If You Want To Order An Autographed 11" x 17" Print Signed By "Tha Artivist" (Without The Watermarks) For Just $20 Plus $6 Shipping & Handling Then Go To The Following Link:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=MGV9NW232R7DE


To learn more about Jimmie Lunceford & The Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival Please Visit The Following Link: 
http://www.jimmieluncefordjam.com/

Or you can mail us a money order:
Attn: Ronald Herd II
"The Lunceford Way Art Print"
P.O. Box 752062
Memphis,TN 38175


The Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival Needs Your Support...Give To Grow The Movement!
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=10544097+


Or you can mail us a money order:
Attn: Ronald Herd II
"The Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival"
P.O. Box 752062
Memphis,TN 38175

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra Alum, 2007 Jimmie Lunceford Legacy Awardee & Jazz Great Snooky Young Dead @ 92


Video: Snooky Young On "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" - 1989
Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra Alum, 2007 Jimmie Lunceford Legacy Awardee & Jazz Great Snooky Young Dead @ 92
 Lil Big Horn: Snooky Young In The Middle With His Long Time Friend & Collaborator Fellow 2007 Lunceford Legacy Awardee Gerald Wilson To His Left & Paul Webster, Performing In The Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra (1941)
 
Snooky Young, trumpeter with Count Basie and ‘Tonight Show,’ dies at 92
By Matt Schudel, Published: May 14, 2011
Washington Post

Snooky Young, an ageless jazz trumpeter who performed in nine decades and was a longtime member of Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show” band, died May 11 at a relative’s home in Newport Beach, Calif. He was 92 and had complications from a lung disorder.

Mr. Young, who began his career in the 1930s, was one of the last active survivors of the Age of Swing. He was a diminutive trumpeter with a big sound, and he anchored the trumpet sections of big bands led by such renowned musicians as Jimmie Lunceford, Count Basie, Lionel Hampton and Benny Carter.

He performed on movie soundtracks, including “The Color Purple,” “New York, New York” and “Blazing Saddles” and appeared as a sideman on albums by artists as diverse as B.B. King, Quincy Jones and the rock group the Band.

Mr. Young, who recorded only three albums as a leader of small groups, preferred the brassy, roaring sound of a big band. His specialty was in playing first trumpet, or lead, in a big band. Although he didn’t solo as much as other players in the section, he usually played a tune’s melody and, with his soaring high notes, formed the core of the band’s trumpet sound.

“Snooky is one of the world’s all-time great trumpet players,” saxophonist Bob Cooper told the Los Angeles Times in 1992. “I can always feel it in the sax section when he’s playing — his time, his interpretation of the material, his sound.”

Mr. Young’s trumpet can be heard on such classic recordings as Lunceford’s “Uptown Blues” (1939) and Basie’s “The Atomic Mr. Basie” (1957), which featured the Neal Hefti tune “Li’l Darlin’.” In 1941, he played the trumpet part for Jack Carson’s character in the jazz movie “Blues in the Night” and appeared in the film as a musician.

Mr. Young joined NBC’s celebrated “Tonight Show” studio band in New York in 1962 and stayed on when the show moved to California 10 years later. He was sometimes featured in solos or in musical duels with the band’s leader, trumpeter Doc Severinsen. The ensemble broke up when Carson retired in 1992.

“It was a great band in New York,” Mr. Young recalled in a 2008 interview for the National Endowment for the Arts. “But when it got to California, I think it might have even got to be better.”

Eugene Edward Young was born Feb. 3, 1919, in Dayton, Ohio, and was called “Snooky” for as long as he could remember. He began playing trumpet at 5 and appeared in his family’s band, the Young Snappy Six.

By age 7, he was winning talent contests by imitating the playing and singing of Louis Armstrong. In the NEA interview, he said that he met Armstrong when he was very young.

“My mom saw him and stopped him and said, ‘Louis Armstrong, this is my son, Snooky,’ ” he recalled. “ ‘He wants to play trumpet like you and he admires you very much.’ I can still remember, Louis hugged me and said many really nice things to me.”

After working in Lunceford’s band from 1939 to 1942, Mr. Young joined Basie and later played with Hampton and Carter. He rejoined Basie in the late 1940s and again from 1957 to 1962.

From 1947 to 1957, Mr. Young led small groups in Dayton. He was a founding member of the highly regarded Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra in 1966 and, in later years, often toured with Severinsen and performed with the Gerald Wilson Orchestra and Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra. He was was named an NEA Jazz Master in 2009.

Survivors include his wife of 72 years, Dorothy Simmons Young of Van Nuys, Calif.; three children, Judy Andrews of Newport Beach, Calif., Granville Young of Thousand Oaks, Calif., and Donna Hoo of Van Nuys, Calif.; seven grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.

The trumpet is a physically demanding instrument, but Mr. Young remained active until the end. According to his family, he practiced three to four hours every day.

Early in his career, he said, he tried to emulate Armstrong, “but I got older and realized you can’t be another musician, you have to find your own way.”


To learn more about Jimmie Lunceford & The Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival Please Visit The Following Link: 

The Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival Needs Your Support...Give To Grow The Movement!
Or you can mail us a money order:
Attn: Ronald Herd II
The Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival
P.O. Box 752062
Memphis,TN 38175

Itawamba County Times: MDA Unveils Fulton Blues Marker

Itawamba County Times: MDA Unveils Fulton Blues Marker
by Adam Armour/Itawamba County Times
http://www.itawamba360.com/view/full_story/13833158/article-MDA-unveils-Fulton-blues-marker?
06.05.11 - 05:40 am


Fulton Mayor Paul Walker and Alex Thomas of the Mississippi Development Authority unveil the Mississippi Blues Trail Marker recognizing famed swing orchestra conductor Jimmie Lunceford, while members of Lunceford’s family look on. (Photo by Adam Armour)

FULTON - On a humid June day in 1902, Fulton gave birth to a music legend.

After more than a century, on a day much like that one, his hometown finally paid its respect.

The Mississippi Development Authority officially unveiled the Mississippi Blues Trail Marker on Saturday for world famous 1920s and 1930s swing band orchestra conductor Jimmie Lunceford in his hometown. A crowd of more than two dozen, including members of the Lunceford family, attended.

The double-sided marker placed downtown briefly recounts Lunceford's life on one side and details his musical influence on the other. Fulton now joins other cities along the Mississippi Blues Trail, including Hattiesburg, Jackson, Aberdeen, New Albany and others.

Alex Thomas of the Mississippi Development Authority spoke of the importance of recognizing Mississippi's great native sons and daughters.

Lunceford was born just northeast of Fulton. After attending college, he began teaching high school in Memphis, where he organized what would later become the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra.

By the 1930s, Lunceford's band was considered by many to be the equal of Duke Ellington's and Count Basie's. He toured throughout the United States and Europe until his sudden death in 1947. He is buried in Memphis.

Lunceford's marker is the first of two music markers planned for Itawamba County. The MDA plans to unveil a marker for country musician and Tremont native Tammy Wynette in August.

Contact Adam Armour at (662) 862-3141 or adam.armour@journalinc.com.
© itawamba360.com 2011

To learn more about Jimmie Lunceford & The Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival Please Visit The Following Link: 

The Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival Needs Your Support...Give To Grow The Movement!
Or you can mail us a money order:
Attn: Ronald Herd II
The Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival
P.O. Box 752062
Memphis,TN 38175

MIKE MILLS: 'King Of Syncopation' A Big Part Of Itawamba's Musical Heritage

MIKE MILLS: 'King Of Syncopation' A Big Part Of Itawamba's Musical Heritage
by Mike Mills
06.04.11 - 06:25 am
The line between Alabama and Mississippi, not to mention the line between Itawamba, Franklin and Marion Counties, is often blurred, if not downright confusing. Some of the early settlers in Red Bay thought they were in Mississippi and some of the Tremont folk thought they had settled in Alabama. And no doubt some folk around Bexar thought they had found Texas.

The citizens of these neighboring communities share much in common. Black-eyed peas and cornbread are a staple in our diet. We all know a home grown tomato properly sliced and peppered and put on white bread smeared generously with mayonnaise is the best thing either side of the Tombigbee. We all cook with Sunflower Self-Rising Corn Meal and sop our biscuits in Golden Eagle Syrup. And we share a regional proprietary claim to the First Lady of Country Music, Tammy Wynette, formerly known as Tammy Pugh, and of course born near Tremont in Itawamba County, Mississippi.

Much has been written about Tammy Wynette's humble beginnings near Tremont. Another prominent former sharecropper in Itawamba County was Miss Rosella Presley, from out east of Fulton. According to local sources, Rosella sometimes frequented an Itawamba business establishment known as The Linger Longer where she may have made acquaintance with the father of one or more of her 10 illegitimate children. She never married. Her grandson, Vernon Presley, was born in Fulton, but later moved to the Shakerag community in East Tupelo. He was the father of the King. As in Rock-N-Roll. An art form. (See the internet web-site .)

Tammy and Elvis made it to the top of their chosen art forms with little education, much determination, and a lot of talent. I love both of them as entertainers. And respect each for the gifts they gave the world.

One would suppose Itawamba County ought to be satisfied with being the seminal ground for the King of Rock and the First Lady of Country Music. But no.

A young fellow named James Melvin "Jimmie" Lunceford was born in the Evergreen community in Itawamba County in 1902. According to noted Itawamba historian Bob Franks, Lunceford's people were initially well to do landowners in the African-American community of Palmetto east of Fulton where his grandfather owned 150 acres off the old Warren plantation. The young Jimmie may have played in the red dirt hills drained by Bull Mountain Creek and Dulaney Branch. Little Jimmie went on to lead one of the greatest jazz bands of his day. He would be known as the King of Syncopation.

Jimmie's people found a way for him to attain a higher education at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. (While there he dated the daughter of W.E.B. Dubois, a prominent black philosopher and founder of the NAACP.) He majored in music and mastered many instruments.

After graduating from college, Jimmie began teaching music at Manassas High School in Memphis where he organized a group of his students into a band called The Chickasaw Syncopators. This group later evolved into Jimmie Lunceford's Orchestra which scored big in 1934 at the Cotton Club in Harlem. The band became known for a two-beat swing and polished showmanship and gained a national reputation. For 10 years they were the top attraction at the Apollo Theatre where the band was known as The Harlem Express. His songs have been described as sophisticated, cheerful and boisterous. Major hits include White Heat, Jazznocracy, Rhythm is Our Business, In Dat Mornin' and Swingin' Uptown.

In his day, Jimmie Lunceford from outside Fulton, Mississippi was bigger than his contemporaries, Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington. Glenn Miller, who borrowed from the Lunceford style, said, "Duke Ellington is great, [Count} Basie is remarkable, but Lunceford tops them both." (Quote from Determeyer's excellent Lunceford biography, Rhythm Is Our Business, 2006.) Unfortunately Jimmie has not enjoyed the lasting fame of many of his contemporaries. His full potential may not have been reached since he died an early death in 1947 when he collapsed while signing autographs in Seaside, Oregon. He is buried in Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis.

A tip of the hat for this piece must go to Rubye Del Harden who wrote about Jimmie in the 1960s; to Fulton musician and author Bob Gilliland who more recently published a piece about him in Itawamba Settlers; and to Oxonian Scott Baretta who prevailed upon the powers that be to finally establish a Jimmie Lunceford marker on the Fulton Courthouse grounds.

And to bring it on home as they say in the music business, what do we make of a few sections of hilly land east of Fulton which not only grow lush Kudzu and stout Mimosa trees but which also produced some of the finest entertainers in America? Well I think if you or your daddy ever ran barefooted in the sandy red ditch banks of an Itawamba gravel road, or if you got baptized or went skinny dipping in Dulaney branch or if you ever tasted the ice cold waters of Bull Mountain Creek (either straight or improved with local corn products), then you have the makin's of mastering an art form yourself.

Mike Mills, a native of Itawamba County, is a U.S. District Court judge.

Marker dedication

- Dedication of a Mississippi Blues Trail marker honoring Jimmie Lunceford will be at 12:30 p.m. today in Playgarden Park in downtown Fulton.
© itawamba360.com 2011


To learn more about Jimmie Lunceford & The Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival Please Visit The Following Link: 

The Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival Needs Your Support...Give To Grow The Movement!
Or you can mail us a money order:
Attn: Ronald Herd II
The Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival
P.O. Box 752062
Memphis,TN 38175

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Promo Video: Homecoming: Jimmie Lunceford's Mississippi Blues Trail Marker Ceremony

Promo Video: Homecoming: Jimmie Lunceford's Mississippi Blues Trail Marker Ceremony
http://blip.tv/we-all-be-tv/6-4-2011-homecoming-jimmie-lunceford-s-mississippi-blues-trail-marker-ceremony-5233078

What: A Homecoming 109 Years In
The Making:
Mississippi Blues
Trail Marker Ceremony For
Jazz Great Jimmie Lunceford

When: Saturday 6/4/2011

Where: Fulton,MS
(Fulton City Hall On The Town
Square)
213 W Wiygul St, Fulton, MS 38843

Time: 12:30 PM Central

About Jimmie Lunceford
Jimmie Lunceford was the first Memphis City Schools high school band director and started music education in The Memphis City Schools back in the 1920s. He was not even hired to be a music instructor but yet believed in the power of music to change lives and wanted to share his passions with young people...He took his band, composed of his best high school students and buddies from Fisk University, left Memphis and became the house band at the famous Cotton Club...His orchestra was also the number one attraction at the legendary Apollo Theatre for a decade and was known as the Harlem Express, the number one band of choice for African Americans IN THE NATION DURING THE 1930S AND THE 1940S...He Was Known As The King Of The Battle Of The Bands Because His Orchestra Would Constantly Beat Those Lead By Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller in popularity contests and cut throat competition...

To learn more about Jimmie Lunceford & The Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival Please Visit The Following Link: 

The Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival Needs Your Support...Give To Grow The Movement!

Or you can mail us a money order:
Attn: Ronald Herd II
P.O. Box 752062
Memphis,TN 38175