Columbus, Chris(topher) (originally, Morris, Joseph Christopher Columbus)
Columbus, Chris(topher) (originally, Morris, Joseph Christopher Columbus)
Columbus, Chris(topher) (originally, Morris, Joseph Christopher Columbus), jazz drummer, leader, father of Sonny Payne; b. Greenville, N.C., June 17, 1902. He led his own band through the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s; he played regularly with Louis Jordan in 1949. He founded the first jazz organ combo in late 1940s with Wild Bill Davis and Bell Jennings. He worked mainly in the Wild Bill Davis Trio in the late 1950s to early 1960s, then accompanied vocalist Damita Jo through the mid-1960s. He was briefly in Duke Ellington’s Orch. (1967), then led his own group in the 1970s. He made a European tour with Davis in 1972. With wife Mary Lee, he fathered Sonny Payne in 1926; some musicians maintain that at Payne’s death his father appeared and said that Columbus had raised Payne but was not his father. However, Columbus insisted that he was Payne’s biological father.
—Lewis Porter