Jimmy Bell
b. 29 August 1910, Peoria, Illinois, USA. d. 31 December 1987, Chicago, Illinois, USA. In high school, Bell learned guitar and piano, and boxed semi-professionally, before becoming a full-time musician in 1930. He worked as a jazz and swing band pianist in the midwest, picking up repertoire and stylistic influences from Roosevelt Sykes, Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson, Art Tatum and Earl Hines. After the war, Bell played sophisticated jump blues, influenced by the Nat King ColeTrio, and made a few recordings. Gambling led to financial problems, and thence to crime, including dealing in heroin, for which he served prison terms in the '50s and '60s. In 1979 he received a six-year sentence for possession of forged food stamps. If not as original as he claimed, Bell remained a forceful and versatile musician in the '70s, playing cocktail music for a living, but still well in command of an eclectic blues, boogie and swing repertoire.