Red Saunders (musician)

Theodore Dudley Red Saunders ( born March 2, 1912 in Memphis ( Tennessee), † March 5, 1981 in Chicago) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Alongside he also played vibraphone and timpani.

Life

He grew up in Milwaukee, where he attended Catholic school St. Benedict the Moor. There he took 13 years the first drum lessons. From 1923 he lived in Chicago; there he graduated from college Tilden Tech. From 1928 he lived and worked as a professional musician Saunders.

At the beginning of his musical career playing Saunders in Milwaukee and Chicago with Stomp King. For five years he lived from his job at Ira Coffey 's Walkathonians. At times he worked with Tiny Parham at Chicago's Savoy Ballroom. In 1937 he transferred to the club DeLisadie lead the in-house band. He remained there ( with a break 1945-1947 ) until the club closed its doors in 1958 final. Among the arrangers, which he commissioned were Johnny Pate and Sun Ra.

Despite his sedentary lifestyle and lack of inclination to go on tours, Saunders also played with Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Woody Herman. With Big Joe Turner, he made recordings. With Count Basie, he was a friend since 1932. He led until the 1960s a combo in the Regal Theatre in Chicago. With Little Brother Montgomery and Art Hodes he played at the New Orleans Jazz Festival in the 1970s. His last recordings he took together on with Montgomery. A TV recording is obtained from the year 1974, on which his band is seen. Saunders was married and had two sons with Ella Mae Saunders, about which there is a website with a few biographical photos. Professionally, she had begun as a dancer but union chairman of the Chicago City Hall.

Since 1997 exists the Red Saunders Research Foundation, which comprehensively deals with the jazz, rhythm-and - blues and blues music of the two post-war decades in Chicago, not specifically with Saunders. The designation by Saunders honorary happened.