Rex Stewart

Rex Stewart
Stewart with Duke Ellington's orchestra, 1943
Stewart with Duke Ellington's orchestra, 1943
Background information
Born
Rex William Stewart Jr.

(1907-02-22)February 22, 1907
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedSeptember 7, 1967(1967-09-07) (aged 60)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
GenreJazz
Occupations
  • Musician
  • bandleader
InstrumentCornet
Years active1920s–1966
Formerly of

Rex William Stewart Jr. (February 22, 1907 – September 7, 1967) was an American jazz cornetist who was a member of the Duke Ellington orchestra.

Career

As a boy, Stewart studied the piano and violin; however, most of his career was spent on the cornet. Stewart dropped out of high school to become a member of the Ragtime Clowns led by Ollie Blackwell. He was with the Musical Spillers led by Willie Lewis in the early 1920s, then with Elmer Snowden, Horace Henderson, Fletcher Henderson, Fess Williams, and McKinney's Cotton Pickers. In 1933, he led a big band at the Empire Ballroom in New York City. Beginning in 1934, he spent eleven years with the Duke Ellington orchestra. Stewart co-wrote "Boy Meets Horn" and "Morning Glory" and supervised recording sessions by members of the Ellington band. He left Ellington to lead "little swing bands that were a perfect setting for his solo playing." He toured in Europe and Australia with Jazz at the Philharmonic from 1947 to 1951.

Stewart at the Aquarium jazz club [fr], New York, 1946

Beginning in the early 1950s, he worked in radio and television and wrote jazz criticism for the Los Angeles Times and the magazines Playboy and DownBeat. The book Jazz Masters of the Thirties is a selection of his criticism. He lived in upstate New York after purchasing a one-hundred-year-old farmhouse. He hosted a jazz radio program in Troy, New York, and owned a small restaurant for a short time near a drag racing track in Vermont. While living in France, he attended the Le Cordon Bleu school of cooking and dedicated his life to becoming a fine cook. Stewart moved to Los Angeles, California, to be near his children. His son, Paul Albert Hardy, lived in New York City. While in Los Angeles, he reunited with musicians from the Ellington band and played jam sessions in clubs. He was a studio musician for The Steve Allen Show, and with George Cole he hosted two radio shows: Dixieland Doings and Things Ain't What They Used to Be.

Stewart died of a brain hemorrhage in Los Angeles, on September 7, 1967, aged 60. His autobiography, Boy Meets Horn, was published in 1991.

Film and television

Stewart made a cameo appearance in the film Rendezvous in July (1950) directed by Jacques Becker. He also appeared in Hellzapoppin' (1941) and The Sound of Jazz (1957) telecast.

Discography

Jam Session, a 1942 short film of Duke Ellington and his orchestra performing "C Jam Blues", featuring Stewart

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Feather, Leonard; Gitler, Ira (1999). "Stewart, Rex William Jr.". The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 623/4. ISBN 978-0-19-507418-5. LCCN 98015485. OCLC 1028724450 – via Internet Archive.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Yanow, Scott (2000). Swing. San Francisco: Miller Freeman Books. pp. 149–151. ISBN 978-0-87930-600-7. LCCN 00024401. OCLC 1036959377 – via Internet Archive.
  3. ↑ Shipton, Alyn (February 29, 2008). "Jazz Library | Rex Stewart". BBC. Retrieved March 14, 2020.
  4. ↑ Kenny, Glenn (July 31, 2018). "Review: In Rendezvous in July, Young Parisians Are on the Move". The New York Times. Section C, p. 4. ISSN 1553-8095. OCLC 1645522. Retrieved March 14, 2020.