Concerto for Cootie: The Life and Times of Cootie Williams (American Made Music Series)

Jazz legend Cootie Williams left home to start his career as a professional musician at the age of fifteen.In 1940, after eleven years as one of the major soloists with the Duke Ellington orchestra, Williams was lured away to the band of Benny Goodman, one of the most popular bands in the country.At the time, it was a controversial move-it was still taboo for African Americans to share the bandstand with white people.Current references to the move usually reduce it to a song written by Raymond Scott, "When Cootie Left the Duke." In reality, it was a seismic event.The Black press predicted Black bands would collapse from raids on their ranks.White musicians were afraid they would be put out of work. And the white press stirred up visions of Black musicians mixing with white women in the new landscape of integrated orchestras. The twenty years trumpeter Williams spent as a band leader (1942-1962) have been covered in only the barest of details.His involvement in politics and the civil ri