Arthur Briggs (musician)

Arthur Briggs ( born April 9, 1899 in Charleston (South Carolina), † July 15, 1991 in Paris) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and jazz musician.

Briggs grew up in an orphanage and first played in the orchestra, the Jenkins Orphanage band, with whom he went on tour. In the U.S., however, it was not possible to make a great career as a jazz musician him. For this reason, he decided in 1927 to go to Europe and founded his Savoy Syncop 's Orchestra in Berlin. He thus led one of the first real German jazz bands, about three years after the German jazz pioneer Eric Borchard had made his first recordings with internationally mixed occupation. Briggs was also the first orchestra conductor employed white musicians in his orchestra and could occur freely in some German bands of the 1920s, regardless of his skin color. He had this opportunity because in Europe, racial segregation and prejudice against blacks were less common, as in the USA. Blacks were still were not perceived in Europe as a serious musician, but as " exotic addition".

Briggs was not the first black orchestra conductors who worked in Germany. Almost two years ago he already gave the orchestra of Sam Wooding a guest appearance in Europe and made in Berlin some recordings. Arthur Briggs worked in Berlin for the disk brands Clausophon and later for the German Grammophon. The early Clausophon recordings were probably released in Poland on the country's leading plate brand Syrena. " It is interesting that they have not been published under Briggs ' name, but the name of Henryk Gold appeared on the labels., Gold was at that time the most famous Polish. salon orchestra conductor, comparable with German Kapellmeister as Paul Godwin or Dajos Béla Briggs worked in his time in Berlin for many leading German dance bands You hear it, for example when shooting Crazy words -. crazy tune from Marek Weber Orchestra as soloist.

Briggs went a few years later to France, where he became one of the leading musicians of the Paris jazz scene, including through his recordings for the label Swing.

He died at the age of 92 years in Paris.

• Jazz trumpeter
• American musician
• Born in 1899
• Died in 1991
• Man