Jack Teagarden with Louis Armstrong & the All-Stars in St. Paul, Minnesota, 1948

Below, a Louis Armstrong Armstrong All Stars Concert from May 8, 1948 in St. Paul, Minnesota. The venue is the St.Paul Auditorium: The Louis Armstrong All-Stars! It’s generally recognized that a May 17, 1947 Town Hall concert in New York City constitutes the origin story of the Louis Armstrong All Stars touring band. Many fantastic […]

Coleman Hawkins Remembers Jimmy Harrison and Jack Teagarden

In 1956, Coleman Hawkins was interviewed by Bill Grauer and Paul Bacon for Riverside Records. At one point, Hawkins recalls a period — about April, 1928, it turns out — that he played at the Roseland Ballroom with Jimmy Harrison, a trombonist and fellow member of Fletcher Henderson’s band. Hawkins and Jimmy already shared a […]

Jack Teagarden Tours the Near East in 1958

In October of 1958, Jack Teagarden and his working band undertook a tour of the near east for the U.S. State Department. The trip covered eighteen countries and 17,000 miles, winding up in January of 1959. The King of Thailand, himself a saxophonist and composer, was happy to see Teagarden, someone whose music he had […]