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 The Fletcher Henderson led the most commercially
successful of the African American Jazz bands of the 1920s. The smooth sound
of his orchestra gave birth to the Swing style of the next decade. Henderson
was from a middle class family and held a degree in chemistry from Atlanta
University. He moved to New York in 1920 intending to do post-graduate work
there while working as a chemist, but he found that jobs were closed to him
because of his race. He instead found work demonstrating sheet music for W.C.
Handy's music publishing company. He left that company to become a manager at
the Black Swan Recording Company, and
organized a band to support Blues singer Ethel
Waters. In 1922, Fletcher led a band at the Club Alabam, which
later moved to the Roseland Ballroom where they stayed for the next ten
years. Coleman Hawkins played saxophone in the
band and is generally considered to be the first great saxophonist in Jazz.
In 1924 he hired the up and coming trumpet player Louis
Armstrong importing him from Chicago, where he had been
playing with King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band. The Orchestra
continued to tour and record until 1939 when it disbanded, and he joined Benny
Goodman Orchestra as the pianist and arranger. This was the first
time that a "White" band hired a "Black" musician to
appear on stage with an orchestra. Goodman
even used the same arrangements as the Fletcher
Henderson Orchestra had used. The band went on to become one
of the most popular of the Swing bands. In 1943 left Goodman's
band until 1947, when he rejoined the Goodman
band as an arranger. He toured as an accompanist for Ethel
Waters in 1948 and 1949. In 1950 he suffered a stroke and was
never able to play again.
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