Billy Eckstine—”Lonesome Lover Blues”
When a handsome young man with an exciting baritone voice came along with a new band that broke attendance records, that’s unusual. But, when he made a single recording that sold far beyond the capacity of the record company to produce it, and theatres were paying him prices never before paid for a new attraction -- then it’s pretty evident that a new star had been born.
The above description applies to singer/songwriter/trumpet and valve trombone player Billy Eckstine.
This is his own composition “Lonesome Lover Blues” with a tenor saxophone solo by Frank Wess.
William Clarence Eckstein ((1914–1993) was a Pennsylvanian singer who sang in clubs before bandleader Earl Hines hired him to perform with his Grand Terrace Orchestra. Eckstine encouraged Hines to hire singer Sarah Vaughan, saxophonist Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, musicians he would collaborate with for years to come. While with Hines, as a colleague of Dizzy Gillespie, Billy also learned to play the trumpet.
After leaving Hines's band in 1943, Eckstine added his trumpet playing skills to his act as a solo night-club vocalist.
The 30 per cent cabaret tax -- so ruinous to night clubs at the time -- was the cause of Billy’s next success. It made him decide to quit night clubs and form his own band.
At the time Billy was working opposite Dizzy Gillespie’s small bebop band at the Yacht Club on 52nd Street, in New York. When that club closed in 1944 Eckstine formed his own big band, which was to last until 1947, and he asked Gillespie to become musical director of the band.
Besides Eckstine and Gillespie the band included in its orchestral lineup Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Charlie Parker, Budd Johnson, Gene Ammons, Kenny Dorham, Fats Navarro -- whom Gillespie suggested to take over the musical direction when he left, Lena Horne, Dexter Gordon, Lucky Thompson and Sarah Vaughan (also ex-Hines).
This was easily the most comprehensive collection of modern jazz stars ever assembled, and the music -- much of it composed by Tadd Dameron and Budd Johnson -- was so far ahead of its time that it is not surprising that the dancing public was not impressed. This was bebop heaven, and from day one the band was an artistic triumph.
By the end of 1944, Eckstine and his band were already paid $5,500 per week at the Regal Theatre in Chicago, and a split over $17,000 -- an unheard of figure for a new band. It would receive a similar wage at the Apollo in New York.
In the fall of 1945, Billy got a fall engagement in the famous Hotel Lincoln Blue Room, New York.
Eckstine's rise during the previous year, in the face of countless wartime obstacles, was all the more sensational considering the fact that he had never yet had the benefit of coast-to-coast broadcasts with his band. At the time, it had been an accepted fact in the music business that air-time is the life blood of a name band. The Lincoln, with its half dozen broadcasts a week via both the CBS and Mutual networks was rated as one of the nation’s foremost location spots and came as a great boon to the Eckstine band.
Even while running his orchestra, Eckstine continued crooning romantic ballads as a solo artist, and his 1946 rendition of “Prisoner of Love” became a Top 10 hit, and the same year “Mr. B.”s own national fan club was founded, which went under the name of “The Girls Who Give In When Billy Gives Out.”
The proceeds from Billy’s singing also contributed to the financial upkeep of the band -- despite its impressive array of musicians, the group was not a commercial success, possibly because bebop was still too new for the public.
Due to its economic troubles, Eckstine’s band only stayed together until 1947. Afterward, Billy Eckstine focused on his career as a solo performer again, and kept making records until 1986.
