Lesser Known Heroes of Jazz Pt. 5 Here’s a biography so “story-like” that it has appeared in two works of (written) fiction. But a career (in Jazz) so professional, that we have to ask, “ . . . why haven’t we heard more about Ms. Valaida Snow?” A polymath, a player of a variety of musical instrument from an early age, she eventually settled on the trumpet and was nicknamed “Little Louis” after you-know-who. Snow was exceptional in the male dominated Jazz world, travelling to and performing in Shanghai in the 1930s - which at that time had a network of dance clubs that catered to European, Asian and/or mixed audiencest: Shanghais Dancing World: Cabaret Culture and Urban Politics, 1919-1954 books.google.hk/books/about/Shanghai_s_Dancing_World.html?id=T6LRZylYgQgC&redir_esc=y To top off the non-fiction/fiction aspects of her life, she was incarcerated by the Nazis in Denmark, sent to a prison camp, but eventually (and amazingly) released in a prisoner exchange in 1942. As you might imagine, this traumatized her for the rest of her life, though she did return to a career in Jazz in the US, wrapping up her stellar career by having a brain haemorrhage (and dying) on stage. Here’s Valaida Snow doing a version of the Duke Ellington/Juan Tizol standard “Caravan” youtube/watch?v=Uj2N18ZfZAY And here you can see the star herself, who appears to be (as we might say) quite a “looker”: youtube/watch?v=UfqZAv3slNM
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 07:05:05 +0000
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