Jenkins, Freddie
Jenkins, Freddie
Jenkins, Freddie, jazz trumpeter; b. N.Y., Oct. 10, 1906; d. Tex., 1978. Freddie Jenkins switched to playing left-handed while in his early teens. He was taught by Lt. Eugene Mikell and played regularly in the 369th Regiment Cadet Band. He went to Wilberforce Univ. in the early 1920s, played briefly with Edgar Hayes’s Blue Grass Buddies, then regularly with Horace Henderson’s Collegians from 1924-28. Jenkins joined Duke Ellington in 1928 and remained with him until he came down with a severe illness in late 1934 (he occasionally doubled on E-flat cornet during 1934). He began playing again in 1935 at Adrian’s Tap Room. Beginning in January 1936, Jenkins spent a brief time conducting the Luis Russell Band at Connie’s Inn (in between Louis Armstrong’s featured numbers), then became partowner of the Brittwood Club, N.Y. By March 1937 he had recovered sufficiently to play in The Cotton Club Floor Show with Duke Ellington.
Late in 1938 he suffered a recurrence of severe lung ailment and spent many months in hospital, never returning to professional playing, although he was active as a songwriter, press agent, and musical adviser in Wash., N.Y., and Calif, throughout the 1940s. During the 1960s he worked in Tex. as a disc jockey and press correspondent.
—John Chilton Who’s Who of Jazz /Lewis Porter