Sam Wooding

Sam Wooding (17 June, 1895–1 August, 1985) was an expatriate American jazz pianist, arranger and bandleader living and performing in Europe and the United States. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he led several big bands in the United States and abroad. His orchestra was at Harlem's Smalls' Paradise in 1925 when a Russian impresario booked it as the pit band for a show, The Chocolate Kiddies, scheduled to open in Berlin later that year. While in Berlin, the band, which featuring such musicians as Doc Cheatham, Willie Lewis, Tommy Ladnier, Gene Sedric, and Herb Flemming, recorded several selections for the Vox label. In 1929, with slightly different personnel, Wooding's orchestra made more recordings in Barcelona and Paris for the Parlophone and Pathé labels. Wooding remained in Europe, performing on the Continent, in Russia and England through most of the 1930s. Wooding's long stays overseas made him virtually unknown at home, but Europeans were among the staunchest jazz fans anywhere, and they loved what the band had to offer. “We found it hard to believe, but the Europeans treated us with as much respect as they did their own symphonic orchestras,” he recalled in a 1978 interview. “They loved our music, but they didn’t quite understand it, so I made it a little easier for them by incorporating such melodies as "Du holder Abendstern" from Tannhauser - syncopated, of course. They called it blasphemy, but they couldn’t get enough of it. That would never have happened back here in the States. Here they looked on jazz as something that belonged in the gin mills and sporting houses, and if someone had suggested booking a blues singer like Bessie Smith, or even a white girl like Nora Baes, on the same bill as Ernestine Schumann-Heink, it would have been regarded as a joke in the poorest of taste.” [Interview w. Chris Albertson for "Official Souvenir Program of Spoleto Festival U.S.A. - 1978."] Returning home in the late 1930s, when WWII seemed a certainty, Wooding began formal studies of music, attained a degree, and began teaching full-time, counting among his students trumpeter Clifford Brown. He also led and toured with the Southland Spiritual Choir. [Listing in "Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music" - Donald Clarke, 1989]

In the early 1970s, Sam Wooding formed another big band and took it to Switzerland for a successful concert, but this venture was short-lived.

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