Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Jerome Darr was born on December 21, 1910 in Baltimore, Maryland. His first major professional affiliation was in a jug band, the Washboard Serenaders. The guitarist was a member of this group from 1933 through 1936, a tenure that included a well-received European tour.

He had an incredibly versatile and prolific career. He showed up on sessions from blues to bebop and even strummed a few arpeggios behind Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers.

Though Jerome was not hiding in a closet during the ’40s, the guitarist simply focused on work as a studio musician during an era when the efforts of such players went largely uncredited. He was a player in the classic jazz context of Buddy Johnson’s band in the early ’50s, or was working with the much more modernistic Charlie Parker during roughly the same period.

He played on some 20 recording sessions between 1935 and 1973, though to his credit or noncredit, his playing included  many other styles besides jazz. In his final years, Darr was mostly swinging in the busy band of trumpeter Jonah Jones, in a sense coming full circle with the type of playing he had started out with.

Guitarist Jerome Darr passed away on October 29, 1986 in Brooklyn, New York.

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