Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Kirby was born in Winchester, Virginia on December 31, 1908 though some sources say he was born in Baltimore, Maryland orphaned, and adopted. He hit New York at 17, but after his trombone got stolen, he switched to tuba.
Kirby joined Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra as a tuba player in 1929. In the early 1930s, he performed some amazingly complicated tuba work on a number of Henderson’s recordings. He picked up on the double bass at the time when tuba was falling out a favor as the primary bass instrument of jazz bands.
About 1933 Kirby left Henderson to go with Chick Webb, went back with Henderson, then with Lucky Millinder and briefly led a quartet in 1935 but generally kept busy as bassist in others’ groups. Securing a gig at the Onyx Club and really got going as a bandleader in 1937. Soon the sextet was known as the Onyx Club Boys.
“The Biggest Little Band in the Land,” as it was called began recording in August 1937 and immediately had a hit with a swing version of “Loch Lomond” and though the group’s name would vary with time this would become one of the more significant “small groups” in the Big Band era and was also notable for making the first recording of the Shavers song “Undecided”. He recorded with Maxine Sullivan for Vocalion Records and accompanied Billie Holiday.
John tended toward a lighter, classically influenced style of jazz, often referred to as chamber jazz. He kept trying to lead a group in clubs and in the studio, occasionally managing to attract such talents as Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Carter, Ben Webster, Clyde Hart, Budd Johnson and Zutty Singleton and Sarah Vaughan.
As John Kirby’s career declined, he drank too much, was beset by diabetes and moved to Hollywood, California, where he died on June 14, 1952 just before a planned comeback.
