Valaida Snow

Valaida Snow ( born June 2, 1904 as Valada Snow in Chattanooga, Tennessee; † 30 May 1956 New York) was an American jazz trumpet player and singer. She was one of the first women who wore the Jazz over the world and performed at, among others, Louis Armstrong, who once as the " second best " jazz trumpeters in the world, after himself, called.

Life and work

Valaida Snow was trained very early to a multi-instrumentalist, with an emphasis on piano, violin, singing, dancing, and trumpet. With her ​​three sisters, Lavada, Alvada and Hattie she formed a singing quartet and toured during the 1920s and early 1930s by the U.S. and the Far East. In 1934 she made ​​her first recording with Noble Sissle and a short time later, another with Earl Hines. From 1936 to 1942 she worked in Europe and there also took her first album under his own name; later she worked until 1938 with English swing and dance bands. They then moved on to Denmark and continued her career with Scandinavian musicians continued.

Mid- March 1942, Snow was taken from the Copenhagen police arrested and spent ten weeks in Copenhagen prison Vestre Fængsel - interrupted by a month-long hospital stay. In May 1942, she was accompanied by two Danish police officers to Gothenburg where she still spent five days in the custody of the Swedish police before they, together with 193 other refugees on board the SS Gripsholm returned to the States and arrived in New Jersey on June 9, 1942. In the following years Valaida Snow claimed she had spent several months in Nazi concentration camps. The facts do not bear this out.

That same year, she made ​​her first appearance at the Apollo Theater. She was a big crowd favorite in Canada.

Valaida Snow had a strong full trumpet, which is strongly reminiscent of Louis Armstrong, but was seldom heard, as they occurred rather than a singer. Mary Lou Williams was of the view that Snow, who could blow a radiant high C, had the potential to be " one of the greats on their instrument " to be able, if they would have concentrated on the trumpet.

Making a good impression of their abilities on the trumpet is obtained with the recordings I Got Rhythm of 9 July 1937, My Heart Belongs to Daddy from August 28, 1938 and on the Soundies with the Ali Baba Trio ( 1946) and two twisted in France movies, L'Alibi (1936 ) with the orchestra Bobby Martin and pièges with the orchestra Freddie Johnson. She also appeared with Maurice Chevalier. In the Netherlands, Queen Wilhelmina gave her a golden trumpet for their services.

Valaida Snow was a singer, actress, choreographer, conductor, dancer, multi-instrumentalist, fluent in several languages ​​and has her way from a poor paved a successful person in show business. She put this success later in the service of fundraisers. She suffered on 8 May 1956 massive cerebral hemorrhage - a few hours after a trumpet gig - and did not wake again from the resulting coma. It was at its fifty-second birthday Buried.

Melba Liston, indicating Snow as one of their models and around 1945 in Los Angeles in a theater band played ( Lincoln's Theatre) with her, said in an interview the bad treatment they experienced by male members of the orchestra.

Disco Graphical Notes

Chattanooga (Tennessee) May 30 Freddy Johnson Wilhelmina of the Netherlands Leonard Feather Integrated Authority File
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