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Red Saunders was born Theodore Dudley Saunders on March 2, 1912 in Memphis, Tennessee. Early in his career he played in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Chicago, Illinois playing with Stomp King. For a time, he worked with Tiny Parham at the Savoy Ballroom in Chicago.

In 1937, the Club DeLisa gave Saunders control of the house band, where he remained almost uninterrupted until the club’s closure in 1958. Among his sidemen were Leon Washington, Porter Kilbert, Earl Washington, Sonny Cohn, Ike Perkins, Riley Hampton, singer Joe Williams and Mac Easton.

Among the arrangers he employed were Johnny Pate and Sun Ra. Despite his regular gig and disinclination to go on the road, Red played with Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Woody Herman, and recorded with Big Joe Turner.

He continued to lead a band at Chicago’s Regal Theater into the Sixties, and played with Little Brother Montgomery and Art Hodes at the New Orleans Jazz Festival in the 1970s. Drummer and bandleader Red Saunders, who also played vibraphone and timpani, passed away on March 5, 1981 in Chicago.

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