Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Cat Anderson was born William Alonzo Anderson on September 12, 1916 in Greenville, South Carolina. Losing both parents when he was four years old, he was sent to live at the Jenkins Orphanage in Charleston, South Carolina where he learned to play the trumpet. It was his classmates that gave him the nickname “Cat” based on his fighting style.

He toured and made his first recording with the Carolina Cotton Pickers, a small group based at the orphanage. After leaving the Cotton Pickers, Anderson played with guitarist Hartley Toots, the Claude Hopkins Big Band, Lucky Millinder, the Erskine Hawkins Orchestra, the Sabby Lewis Orchestra, the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, with whom he recorded the classic Flying Home No. 2, and the Doc Wheeler Sunset Orchestra with whom he also recorded from 1938–1942.

His career took off in 1944 when he joined Duke Ellington’s orchestra at the Earle Theater in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He quickly became a central part of Ellington’s sound. Although Anderson was a very versatile musician, capable of playing in a number of jazz styles, he is most renowned for his abilities in the extreme high or “altissimo” range. He had a big sound in all registers but could play up to a “triple C” with great power, able to perform his high-note solos without a microphone.

A master of half valve and plunger mute playing, Cat was capable of filling in for anyone else who was not there. He led and fronted his own big band and in addition, he was a very skilled arranger and composer. He performed his own compositions El Gato and Bluejean Beguine with Ellington, and others of his compositions and arrangements with his own band, for example on his 1959 Mercury recording, Cat on a Hot Tin Horn.

After 1971, he settled in the Los Angeles, California area, where he continued to play studio sessions, perform with local small and big bands, and to tour Europe. He recorded seven albums as a leader, and as a sideman recorded sixty-four with Johnny Hodges, Quincy Jones, Rosemary Clooney, Frances Faye, Mel Torme, Earl Hines, Bell Berry, Benny Carter, Claude Bolling, Gene Ammons, Louis Bellson, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Lionel Hampton. Trumpeter Cat Anderson passed away from cancer on April 29, 1981.

More Posts: arranger,bandleader,composer,history,instrumental,jazz,music,trumpet