Chick Webb & His Little Chicks—”I got Rhythm”

Between the time William Henry Webb was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on February 10, 1909, and the day he died age 30, following an operation for a kidney ailment at John Hopkins Hospital in New York, on June 16, 1939, Chick Webb had risen from a gnome-like little newsboy to a young man who drummed his way into America's brightest entertainment spotlight.

Despite the handicap of a frail and crippled body -- age two he was dropped and broke several bones in his back that made him look like a hunchback the rest of his life-- Chick Webb managed to form an outstanding band.

He also led a small quintet called Chick Webb and his Little Chicks, both in the record studio as on stage. A 1939 newspaper review mentions that the band or its "jam quintet numbers" are presented on stage.

Here are reedman Chauncey Haughton on clarinet, Wayman Carver, who really made the flute a jazz instrument, and the rhythm section formed by the piano of Tommy Fulford, the bass of Beverley Peer and the drums of Chick Webb, with George Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm” recorded in New York, September 21, 1937.

Webb's habit of beating rhythms thumping a butter tub and tin cans brought him fame as a neighborhood nuisance. He hustled newspapers until he saved enough money to buy a a set of drums for 10 dollars. At the age of 11 he started playing drum dates at parties with this set.

By the age of 17, fate threw Chick Webb and Duke Ellington together. Both were out of work until Duke finally managed to sign a contract for two jobs.

Ellington insisted that Webb took one of them with his own band, so Webb came to New York in 1926.

Webb had a special relationship with Ellington and partly influenced the sound of the Duke's orchestra. Alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges started out with Webb before he joined Ellington, and Webb also persuaded Ellington to bring Cootie Williams from Fletcher Henderson's band into the Ellington orchestra.

The friendship with Ellington endured until Chick Webb's death, and the Duke was one of the honorary pallbearers at Webb's funeral.