Jack Teagarden

Jazz trombonist and singer, born in Vernon, Texas, USA. He started playing professionally at 10, and for him it always seemed easy. His embouchure was so sensitive that he barely moved the slide when he played, and when he sang it seemed as natural as talking. In 1928 he worked his way to Chicago, and supported himself playing in the Ben Pollack orchestra until 1933. He moved to New York as a featured soloist in Paul Whiteman's orchestra (1933–8) and set a new standard for jazz trombone, smooth but forceful, in numerous recordings. His first recorded vocal, ‘A Hundred Years from Today’ was a hit in 1933. Big, sleepy-eyed, and rural, he donned a tuxedo when he led his own orchestra (1939–46). He joined Louis Armstrong's All Stars (1947–51), then formed small bands for concert tours and played with local musicians in club dates.

Weldon Leo "Jack" Teagarden (August 20, 1905 – January 15, 1964) was an influential jazz trombonist and vocalist.

Born in Vernon, Texas, his brothers Charlie and Clois "Cub" and his sister Norma also became noted professional musicians. Teagarden's father was an amateur brass band trumpeter and started young Jack on baritone horn;

Teagarden's trombone style was largely self-taught, and he developed many unusual alternative positions and novel special effects on the instrument. He is usually considered the most innovative jazz trombone stylist of the pre-Bebop era, and did much to expand the role of the instrument beyond the old tailgate style role of the early New Orleans brass bands.

By 1920 Jack Teagarden was playing professionally in San Antonio, Texas, including with the band of pianist Peck Kelley. Glenn Miller and Teagarden collaborated to provide lyrics and a verse to Spencer William's' 'Basin Street Blues, which in that amended form became one of the numbers that Teagarden played until the end of his days.

In the early 1930s Teagarden was based in Chicago, for some time playing with the band of Wingy Manone. Teagarden sought financial security during The Great Depression and signed an exclusive contract to play for the Paul Whiteman Orchestra from 1933 through 1938.

Teagarden then started leading his own big band. In spite of Teagarden's best efforts, the band was not a commercial success, and Jack was brought to the brink of bankruptcy.

In 1946 Jack joined Louis Armstrong's All Stars. Armstrong and Teagarden's work together shows a wonderful rapport, in particular their patented duet on Rocking Chair. In late 1951 Teagarden left to again lead his own band, then co-led a band with Earl Hines, then again with a group under his own name with whom he toured Asia in 1958 and 1959.

Teagarden was also a prolific and popular singer.

Teagarden appeared in the movies Birth of the Blues (1941), The Glass Wall (1953), and Jazz on a Summer's Day (1959).

Teagarden was the featured perfomer at the Newport Jazz Festival of 1957. Sudhalter writes (in 'Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contribution to Jazz', Oxford University Press 1999): "The late trumpet player Don Goldie, who spent four years in Teagarden's band and had known him since childhood 'always got a feeling that a lot of happiness was locked away inside Jack, really padlocked, and never came out...just this feeling of sadness.

"Jack Teagarden died, alone, [of pneumonia] in his room at the Prince Conti Hotel in the French Quarter of New Orleans on January 15, 1964. I think everybody familiar with Jack Teagarden knows that he was something that happens just once.

"...Connie Jones, the New Orleans cornetist working with Jack Teagarden at the time of the trombonist's death, was a pallbearer for the wake, held at a funeral parlor on leafy St. Charles Avenue: 'I remember seeing him there in a coffin, a travelling coffin.

"'Not that he was that tall.

A lovely coda to Teagarden's recording career is the album "Think Well of Me", recorded in January 1962 and made up of his singing and trombone playing, accompanied by strings, on compositions by his old musical associate Willard Robison: available on Verve CD 314 557 101-2