Sonny White

Ellerton Oswald, better known as Sonny White (November 11, 1917, Panama City, Panama - April 28, 1971, New York City) was a jazz pianist who spend most of his life in America.

Oswald took on the name Sonny White as a member of Jesse Stone's band in the middle of the 1930s. Later in the decade he played with Willie Bryant, Sidney Bechet, Teddy Hill, and Frankie Newton, and recorded with Billie Holiday. White plays on the classic recording of "Strange Fruit"; Holiday thought that he co-wrote the song with Abel Meeropol, but this was incorrect. In the 1940s he spent time in the bands of Artie Shaw, Benny Carter (with whom he played both directly before and directly after military service during World War II, Big Joe Turner, Lena Horne, Dexter Gordon (1944-46), and Hot Lips Page (1947). In the 1950s White played with Harvey Davis and then with Wilbur De Paris, remaining with the latter until 1964; he freelanced in the 1960s with Eddie Barefield (1968), among others, and was working with Jonah Jones at the time of his death in 1971.

References

*Eugene Chadbourne, [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:3zfwxqygldse~T1 Sonny White] at Allmusic