Sam Wooding
b. 17 June 1895, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, d. 1 August 1985. Largely self-taught, Wooding began playing piano professionally around 1912, before playing in clubs in New York City. After military service in World War I he formed his own band for an engagement in Atlantic City, then played other east coast venues before taking a band to Europe in 1925. He was resident in Berlin with the CHOCOLATE KIDDIES show, which featured some of Duke Ellington's earliest music, then toured throughout central and eastern Europe, Russia, Scandinavia, and the UK. On the way back to the USA the band visited South America. After a few months in the USA, Wooding formed another band with which to tour Europe, this time returning in 1931. In the early '30s he led a band in the USA, but by the middle of the decade, and on the eve of the swing era, he abandoned performing in order to study music. In the late '30s and early '40s he taught, and also directed a gospel choir, then formed a small vocal group. In the '50s and '60s he toured as a single and in partnership with singer Rae Harrison. He continued a round of teaching and frequent appearances as a performer into old age. In 1976, as part of America's Bicentennial celebrations, he led a 10-piece band at concerts and for a recording session. Despite his widespread popularity in other lands, Wooding never gained real success in his own country. By the time he tried to establish himself in the USA, musical times were changing and the style on which he had built his overseas reputation was out of fashion. Nevertheless, Wooding was enormously important in spreading awareness of jazz and his was a significant role in helping to make jazz a truly international music. The music he played to European audiences was much closer to true jazz than was, say, the earlier music offered to Europeans by James Reese Europe; and Wooding's sidemen on his early visits included such leading jazzmen as Tommy Ladnier, Willie Lewis and Gene Sedric.