Sylvester Lewis (October 19, 1908 in Kansas City, Missouri – 1974 in New York City) was an American

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a majo ...

trumpeter. Lewis played locally as a college student in Kansas City in the 1920s. His first major tour was with a traveling revue called ''Shake Your Feet'', where he met

Herbie Cowens Herbert "Kat" Cowans or Cowens (born May 24, 1904 - Jan. 23rd, 1993) was an American jazz drummer born in Texas. Cowans worked as a shoeshine boy as a child. His first professional engagement as a drummer was with the Satisfied Five, a local Tex ...

; he then joined Cowens's own group, playing at the

Rockland Palace Rockland may refer to: People *Per Bergsland, nicknamed Peter Rockland, one of three successful escapees from Stalag Luft III (the "Great Escape") Places ;In Canada * Rockland, Greater Victoria * Rockland, Nova Scotia * Rockland, Ontario ;In the ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

in 1928. He also recorded with

Jelly Roll Morton Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe (later Morton; c. September 20, 1890 – July 10, 1941), known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer. Morton was jazz's first arranger, proving that a ge ...

in New York. After a stint with

Aubrey Neal Aubrey Gordon Neal (31 July 1893 – 26 September 1951) was an Australian rules footballer who played for the Melbourne Football Club The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Demons, is a professional Australian rules football club that ...

(1929–30), Lewis joined

Claude Hopkins Claude Driskett Hopkins (August 24, 1903 – February 19, 1984) was an American jazz stride pianist and bandleader. Biography Claude Hopkins was born in Alexandria, Virginia, United States. Historians differ in respect of the actual date of his ...

's band, playing with him from 1930 to 1936 and recording with him extensively between 1932 and 1935. After leaving Hopkins, Lewis performed in Billy Butler's orchestra for the theater show ''

Rhapsody in Black Rhapsody may refer to: * A work of epic poetry, or part of one, that is suitable for recitation at one time ** Rhapsode, a classical Greek professional performer of epic poetry Computer software * Rhapsody (online music service), an online mu ...

'' and played in

Noble Sissle Noble Lee Sissle (July 10, 1889 – December 17, 1975) was an American jazz composer, lyricist, bandleader, singer, and playwright, best known for the Broadway musical '' Shuffle Along'' (1921), and its hit song " I'm Just Wild About Harry". ...

and

Eubie Blake James Hubert "Eubie" Blake (February 7, 1887 – February 12, 1983) was an American pianist and composer of ragtime, jazz, and popular music. In 1921, he and his long-time collaborator Noble Sissle wrote '' Shuffle Along'', one of the first B ...

's ''

Shuffle Along ''Shuffle Along'' is a musical composed by Eubie Blake, with lyrics by Noble Sissle, and a book written by the comedy duo Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles. One of the most notable all-Black hit Broadway shows, it was a landmark in African-Ameri ...

'' in 1941. He led his own band for troop tours of the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, and recorded with

Roy Eldridge David Roy Eldridge (January 30, 1911 – February 26, 1989), nicknamed "Little Jazz", was an American jazz trumpeter. His sophisticated use of harmony, including the use of tritone substitutions, his virtuosic solos exhibiting a departure from ...

in 1946 after his discharge. He began studying the

Schillinger system The Schillinger System of Musical Composition, named after Joseph Schillinger (1895–1943) is a method of musical composition based on mathematical processes. It comprises theories of rhythm, harmony, melody, counterpoint, form and semantics, pu ...

in the late 1940s, but gave up music entirely after 1949 and spent the rest of his life working for the New York City Subway.

References

Eugene Chadbourne Eugene Chadbourne (born January 4, 1954) is an American banjoist, guitarist and music critic. Life and career Chadbourne was born in Mount Vernon, New York, but grew up in Boulder, Colorado. He started playing guitar when he was eleven or twe ...

, Sylvester Lewisat

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the dat ...

*"Sylvester Lewis". '' The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz''.

References

Further reading