Louis Jordan was an American jazz and rhythm-and-blues musician. He is among the top five most successful African-American artists for all time compiling the American charts.
Background
Louis was born on July 8, 1908 in Wheatley, Arkansas, United States, the son of Jimmy Jordan, a bandleader and music teacher, and Lizzie Reed. His family moved to Brinkley, Arkansas, shortly after his birth and it is there that he developed his musical skills.
Education
At the age of seven, Louis began his musical training on clarinet with his father, who, in addition to teaching music, was the musical director of the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, which featured Ma Rainey and the young Bessie Smith. (Jordan was to tour with this group while still in high school. )
When Jordan spotted a saxophone in a music store window, he was so drawn to it, he said, that he "ran errands all over Brinkley until my feet were sore and I saved until I could make a down payment on that shiny instrument. " His father then started him on the saxophone.
Jordan played with several Little Rock groups while in high school and as a music major at Arkansas Baptist College.
Career
In 1929 Jordan made his professional debut as a member of Jimmy Pryor's Imperial Serenaders, and he began to attract the attention of other area musicians. The resorts and nightlife in Hot Springs, Arkansas, necessitated the hiring of large numbers of musical groups and entertainers. With his growing reputation, Jordan became one of the most sought-after sidemen for Hot Springs performances.
In 1930, he joined Rudy ("Tuna Boy") Williams's Belvedere Orchestra, one of the most successful groups working the Hot Springs circuit. This gig was followed by engagements with various other area bands before Jordan moved to Philadelphia in 1932 to join the band of tuba player Jim Winters. His experiences in Philadelphia and the surrounding areas helped broaden his musical scope.
Later, he move to New York City with the Charlie Gaines band, where he and Gaines took part in Clarence Williams's recording session for "I Can't Dance" and other songs. This was Jordan's first recording, and it exposed him to a wider audience and made more influential bandleaders aware of his style and abilities. He became a member of the musician's Local 802 and finally settled in New York City in the summer of 1935.
He joined violinist Leroy Smith's orchestra. Like other "society bands" of the day, Smith's group specialized in popular and high classical music and frequently performed in New York, with side performances in Cleveland and Atlantic City. After leaving Smith a year later, Jordan played briefly with Fats Waller and Kaiser Marshall before beginning a two-year stay with Chick Webb's Savoy Ballroom Band. In addition to playing alto, soprano, and baritone saxophone, he was the featured vocalist. The exposure and recordings with the Webb band gave him the notoriety and visibility he sought.
Upon leaving Webb's band in the summer of 1938, he began leading his own ensemble at the Elks' Rendezvous in New York City. That December, his band - later named the Tympany Five, even though it always had seven or eight members - made its first recording. His big break came when his group served as the opening act for the Mills Brothers at the Capitol Lounge in Chicago. Starting with a ten-minute show, their set was eventually expanded to one-third of the show's format. With a Decca recording contract and a loyal following, Jordan and the group were on their way. Although he was occasionally featured as soloist in performances and recordings with Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, Ella Ftizgerald, and others, it was as the alto sax leader and vocal soloist of the Tympany Five that he became successful.
The military and musician union's ban on recording from August 1942 to September 1943 interrupted Jordan's recording career, as it did everyone's. By this time, however, he was a well-established personality; hence, he was able to turn to film and continue spreading his popularity. Movies became the primary vehicle through which Jordan helped popularize rhythm and blues. Because few of his audiences had access to full-time television and radio programming - for "race" music was not established until 1948 - the short musical film made by Jordan and others became the primary medium for this new music. Made by small, independent film companies, these musical "shorts" played in more than six hundred theaters, most of which were located in the black communities of the southern and border states. The presence of Jordan in a short guaranteed a packed house.
During his peak productive years, 1938 to 1946, Jordan sold more than five million records. His popularity in musical shorts was matched by his popularity on Nickelodeon jukeboxes. Long before the advent of the MTV cable network, these jukeboxes included a large screen that showed a film loop featuring clips from popular music shorts.
As a savvy businessman, Jordan seldom failed to retain his rights to receive fees or royalties. One exception to this was the hit song "Caldonia" and the events surrounding it. In an attempt to protect the copyright from an unscrupulous publisher, Jordan credited the composing of "Caldonia" to his first wife, Fleecie Moore, whom he had married in the early 1940's. However, both Jordan and his manager, who devised the scam, were outsmarted in the end when the Jordans divorced in 1951. As one of Jordan's most successful and frequently recorded compositions, "Caldonia" earned large sums of money for Moore.
Jordan recorded for Decca from 1938 to 1953 and toured throughout that time. As his health began to fail, he curtailed the touring. Many believed that the new rock-and-roll was the cause of his inactivity, but it was in fact his health. "I had two years of ill health. I'd go out and play a couple of months and I'd get sick, " said Jordan.
After 1955, Jordan briefly led a big jazz band but soon returned to small-group performing. He continued to perform into the 1970's, with a solo tour of England in 1962 and group tours of Asia in 1967 and 1968. After leaving New York City in 1954, he lived for eighteen years with his second wife in Phoenix, Arizona, before they settled in Los Angeles in 1972.
In October 1974, while performing in Sparks, Nevada, Jordan suffered a heart attack. After a short stay in a hospital in Reno, he returned to Los Angeles to recuperate. Four months later, while shopping with his wife, Jordan suffered another attack, this time fatal.
Jordan possessed a combination of showmanship and musicianship that became the most influential force in the emerging rhythm-and-blues style of the late 1940's and early 1950's.
Quotes from others about the person
As reported in the July 8, 1946, issue of Newsweek, "Last week, the Negro film industry reached a new high-water mark with the release of 'Beware, ' an Astor Pictures production starring Louis Jordan, one of Decca's most lucrative recorders. The picture cinches Jordan's reputation as a great melody maker. The presence of Jordan, who has just made his third personal appearance at the Paramount Theater in New York, assures (its) box-office success. The most successful Negro film to date was Caldonia, another Astor production with Jordan and His Tympany Five. "
Connections
Jordan was married five times. His first wife was named Julia or Julie. By 1932 he was married to Ida Fields, a Texas singer and dancer. He and Fields divorced. In 1942 he married his childhood sweetheart, Fleecie Moore; they were later divorced. He married Vicky Hayes, a dancer, in 1951; they separated in 1960. He married Martha Weaver, a singer and dancer, in 1966.