International Sweethearts of Rhythm

The International Sweethearts of Rhythm were one founded in 1939 at the Piney Woods Country Life School in Mississippi Jazz Big Band, which consisted only of women (without segregation ).

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Known as a precursor all-girl band were Ina Ray Hutton and her Melodears that existed from 1934 to 1939. They started as a band of Piney Woods School, a school for children from poor families and orphans in Mississippi, most of the black population but also of other minorities, such as Mexican or Chinese. The Headmaster Laurence C. Jones had heard the band of Ina Ray Hutton and wanted to gain a similar band funds for the school. Jones began with fifteen girls of his school at age 14 to 19 years old, but also recruited members outside the school on tours and travel. The band toured throughout the South. They eventually broke with its founder Jones ( who founded another woman band, the Swinging Rays of Rhythm ) after a strike (they were poorly paid, their accounts were not sure and Jones invested their money in life insurance policies that were issued to the school). They stepped in Washington D.C. the local black musicians' union in and got Eddie Durham as an arranger. Durham wore no small way to success by the arrangements he wrote the band on the body, for example, he wrote the umd limited improvisational talent of the former soloists knowing the solos such a way that they sounded like improvised. He also perfected their appearance with new costumes and a band style which was followed by Jimmy Lunceford. They had great success, among other things, with 35,000 spectators in a week at the Howard Theater in Washington DC in 1941. The band members but were still being ripped off ( at wages far below union standards ). , Which was one reason why Durham left the band On tour they slept in the bus.

As of 1941, the glamorous Anna Mae Winburn (or Anna May, born 1913), the leader, who also appeared as a singer. She was previously director of the Cotton Club Boys after but changed many of the musicians to Fletcher Henderson (or were drafted ) she was stranded in Omaha and readily adopted the line of Sweethearts. Other professional musicians met in 1941 added as Vi Burnside and Tiny Davis. In 1942 she toured from coast to coast with Fletcher Henderson's band alternately. At the time when many big band musicians were drafted in the 1940s, the Sweethearts had great success in the media, toured as before especially against colored audience. In 1946, she appeared in a film on ( That Man of Mine, with Ruby Dee ), in which she played herself. Mid-1940s, she appeared in leading concert spots such as the Savoy Ballroom and the Apollo Theater and toured in 1945 for the troops care in Europe (due to letter writing campaigns from there stationed black U.S. soldiers ), while as was customary occurred isolated against white and black audience. 1947 left leading musicians like Winburn, Davis and Burnside the band. The big band existed until the end of 1948. Died one hand, her manager Rae Lee Jones, on the other hand, the public's taste and the conditions changed at all for big bands.

Among her arrangers were the Kansas City Veterans Eddie Durham ( who arranged for Ina Ray Hutton's even band) and his successor as Jesse Stone (1943 ) and the mid-1940s Maurice King. At the very early arrangers of the band included the Solotrompeterin Edna Williams.

Winburn tried again and again to create new successor bands, but without being able to build on previous successes in the 1950s. Among the soloists counted Viola " Vi " Burnside (tenor saxophone ), a school friend of Sonny Rollins and previously at the Harlem Playgirls, Ernestine " Tiny" Davis ( trumpet), also formerly of the Harlem Playgirls, and Peggy Becheers (tenor saxophone).

The band consisted mainly of colored musicians (including members after that time laws in the southern states not only African Americans, but also Hawaiian, Chinese and Mexican ethnic origin fell, who were also represented at the Sweethearts ), but also took up white musicians, but what in the Southern led to problems (Jim Crow laws), where the band toured frequently. The first was the trumpeter Toby Butler 1943.

Anna Mae Winburn revived the band in 1950 as a new Anna Mae Winburn and her Sweethearts of Rhythm, which existed until 1955. Tiny Davis founded after the end of Sweethearts her own band Helldivers and later had a bar in Chicago with her partner, the drummer and pianist Ruby Lucas.

More All girl bands of the time were in addition to the Sweethearts, the Harlem Playgirls and Ina Ray Hutton Melodears: British Ivy Benson and Her All Girl Orchestra, Ada Leonard and her All American Girls, Phil Spitalny and his Hour of Charm All- Girl Orchestra, the Darlings of Rhythm with Clarence Love, the prairie View Coeds, Swinging Rays of Rhythm, Eddie Durham's All Star Girl Orchestra (founded by Durham in 1942 after his departure from the Sweethearts, with some musicians from the Sweethearts he departure in his took ) and the Dixie Rhythm Girls. The last five bands and the Harlem Playgirls consisted of colored musicians.

Recordings

• The Women, Classic Female Jazz Artists 1939-1952, Bluebird, 1990, several pieces in an assortment of Leonard Feather.

Movie Documentary

( Two musicians from the band, the solo trumpeter Tiny Davis and drummer Ruby Lucas, Greta Schiller and Andrea Weiss provide more detail in their documentary Tiny & Ruby: Hell Divin ' Women (1988 ) ago)