George Lewis (clarinetist)

George Lewis Francis Zeno ( born July 13, 1900 in New Orleans, † December 31, 1968 ibid ) was one of the most important clarinetists of the New Orleans Jazz.

Life and work

As one of the few musicians who did not leave New Orleans in the 1920s to New York or Chicago, he played in small ensembles and the Eureka Brass Band - temporarily beside a main occupation as dockers in the 1930s ( Great Depression in 1929 -1941 ). With the rediscovery of the New Orleans Jazz 1942 - at the end of the swing era - he played in the band of trumpeter Bunk Johnson in 1945 and 1946 in New York. Between 1959 and 1967 he visited several times with his own band, which also belonged Kid Howard, Europe and Japan and influenced as part of the Dixieland revival ( Ken Colyer, Chris Barber and others) in Hamburg Lewis played in 1959 and 1961 with the Jailhouse Jazzmen of the trumpeter Abbi Hübner after his great performances in the Ernst Merck Halle in Mumme cellar or in the Jailhouse tavern. In the 1950s in Europe, with its harmonically simple and folk -like style a variety of clarinetists of traditional jazz.