Louis Metcalf
b. 28 February 1905, Webster Groves, Missouri, USA, d. 27 October 1981. Metcalf was playing trumpet professionally by his early teenage years and spent some five years with Charlie Creath. The '20s were Metcalf's finest decade. Based in New York, he worked and sometimes recorded with blues singers and a galaxy of important jazz artists, including Sidney Bechet, Duke Ellington, J.C. Higginbotham, James P. Johnson, Albert Nicholas, Luis Russell, Jelly Roll Morton and King Oliver. In the '30s and '40s, Metcalf sometimes moved away from New York, frequently visiting Canada as a bandleader. Although his career profile was now much lower he still played with leading figures, including Lester Young and Billie Holiday. He played on through the '50s and '60s, often working at clubs in New York; but Metcalf's later years were overshadowed by his earlier successes. A gifted, blues-orientated trumpeter, with a precisely-articulated style, Metcalf's was an original talent whose recorded work offers only tantalizing glimpses of a major jazz artist.