Jimmie Lunceford
June 6, 1902 – July 12, 1947
Jimmie Lunceford played the alto saxophone and lead his own swing band. The origin of the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra can be traced back to when Lunceford was still in high school, and within a couple of years after graduation, they were already recording and touring. And by 1933, they were gracing the stage of Harlem’s Cotton Club where audiences ate up their fun and wildly entertaining shows. Lunceford and his band are as revered as the greats of the swing era, Count Basie and Duke Ellington. It was the summer of 1947 that found Lunceford on tour in Oregon, and it was after a show while signing autographs that he collapsed and died of cardiac arrest. There has been speculation that he had actually been poisoned earlier at dinner by a restaurant owner upset that he had to serve a “negro.” Lunceford had recently turned 45.
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