Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Alberta Hunter was born on April 1, 1895 in Memphis, Tennessee to Laura Peterson, who worked as a maid in a Memphis brothel, and Charles Hunter, a Pullman porter, a father she never knew. She attended Grant Elementary School and attended school until around age 15.

Hunter had a difficult childhood and left for Chicago, Illinois, around the age of 11 in the hopes of becoming a paid singer hearing that it paid ten dollars per week. Instead of finding a job as a singer she worked at a boarding house for six dollars a week with room and board.

Her singing career started in a bordello and soon moved to Saloons, bars and clubs that appealed to men, black and white alike. By 1914 Alberta was receiving lessons from jazz pianist, Tony Jackson, who helped her to expand her repertoire and compose her own songs. Her big break came when she was booked at Dreamland Cafe, singing with King Oliver and his band.

Sheeventually rose from the city’s lowest dives to headlining the most prestigious venue for black entertainers, the Dreamland ballroom. She had a five-year residency with the venue in 1917 for $35 a week. She first toured Europe in 1917, performing in Paris and London. The Europeans treated her as an artist, showing her respect and even reverence, which made a great impression on her.

Hunter flourished in the 1920s and 1930s on both sides of the Atlantic. She recorded prolifically during the 1920s, starting with sessions for Black Swan in 1921, Paramount in 1922–1924, Gennett in 1924, OKeh in 1925–1926, Victor in 1927 and Columbia in 1929. While still working for Paramount, she also recorded for Harmograph Records. By the early 1940s she was performing at home and eventually moved to New York City where she performed with Bricktop and recorded with Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet.

Continuing to perform on both sides of the Atlantic she was the head of the U.S.O.’s first black show. In 1944, she took a U.S.O. troupe to Casablanca, in both theatres of World War II, then to Korea until her mother’s death in 1957. She retired from music and went into healthcare, becoming a nurse for 20 years at Roosevelt Island’s Goldwater Memorial Hospital. Aged out of the hospital because they believed she was 70, at 82 she returned to singing. With a two week residency at a Greenwich Village club, that turned into a six year attraction until her death on October 17, 1984 in Roosevelt Island, New York at the age of 89.