Williams, Cootie

Williams, Cootie (Charles Melvin), important jazz trumpet, long associated with Duke Ellington, leader; b. Mobile, Ala., July 10, 1911; d. N.Y., Sept. 15, 1985. He said he got his nickname when, as a small child, he heard a live band and later described their playing as “cootie, cootie, cootie” (not from the slang word for head lice). He was raised by an aunt after his mother, a pianist, died when he was eight. He played trombone, tuba, and drums in the school band, taught himself to play trumpet, then took lessons from Charles Lipskin. Williams began to do local gigs with Holman’s Jazz Band and Johnny Pope’s Band, and at 14 did a summer tour with the Young Family Band (with Lester and Lee). He moved to Pensacola, Fla. (in company of Edmond Hall) and joined a band led by Eagle Eye Shields and subsequently joined Alonzo Ross’s De Luxe Syncopators (1926). Except for a brief absence, he worked with Alonzo Ross all through 1927; went with the band to N.Y. in spring of 1928. After gigging around N.Y., he joined Duke Ellington in mid-1929, replacing Bubber Miley, who had become increasingly unreliable due to heavy drinking. Ellington wrote “Concerto for Cootie” (1940) for him, which became “Do Nothing Till You Hear from Me,” when words were written for it. From 1937 to 1940, he recorded as the leader of the Gotham Stompers, using Ellington and Webb band personnel plus vocalist Ivie Anderson. He also recorded with Lionel Hampton, Teddy Wilson, and Billie Holiday during this period.

Williams remained with Duke until November 1940, then joined Benny Goodman until October 1941 (he had first appeared with Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall Concert in January 1938). He was featured on small group versions of “Breakfast Feud,” “Wholly Cats,” “Royal Garden Blues,” and on the big band “Superman” (by Eddie Sauter). He then formed his own big band, which played long residencies at the Savoy Ballroom during the 1940s. He was very sympathetic to the new music of the 1940s; in 1944 Bud Powell was his pianist, and was featured on a number of recordings and broadcasts. Williams’s his band was the first to record Thelonious Monk’s Round Midnight and the Monk-Kenny Clarke piece “Epistrophy” (“Fly Right”). Charlie Parker was in the band briefly and solos on a broadcast of “Floogie Boo” (1944); Eddie Lockjaw Davis and Sam the Man Taylor were also with the band. Williams’s band scored its biggest hits in the mid-1940s with “Torch Song,” featuring vocalist Pearl Bailey, and “Cherry Red Blues” with singer and saxophonist Eddie Vinson. Williams cut down to a small band in 1948. After the Savoy closed, Cootie toured as a single; later, he formed his own quartet; served as a session musician on various R&B dates in the early 1950s, and teamed with Rex Stewart on some studio dates in 1957 and 1958.

Williams toured Europe with his own small band early in 1959. He returned to Benny Goodman briefly from late July 1962, then rejoined Duke Ellington in autumn of 1962, remaining except for short breaks until Ellington’s death (1974); in the 1970s, Ellington featured him primarily as a soloist rather than with the trumpet section. Ellington wrote “New Concerto for Cootie” in the early 1960s. Thereafter he worked in Mercer Ellington’s Band until 1975. He was in poor health (1978) but continued to play, including engagements in Europe, until 1983. Williams’s sound was incredibly powerful.

Discography

Sextet and Orchestra: 1944 Recordings (1944); Things Ain’t What They Used to Be (1944); Big Challenge (1957); Cootie and Rex (1957); Cootie Williams in Hi Fi (1958); Do Nothing Till You Hear from Me (1959); Solid Trumpet of Cootie Williams (1962).

—John Chilton/Lewis Porter