Eddie South was an American jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

ist.

Biography

South was a classical violin prodigy who switched to jazz because of limited opportunities for African-American musicians, and started his career playing in vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

 and jazz orchestras with Freddie Keppard

Freddie Keppard

Freddie Keppard was an early jazz cornetist.Keppard was born in the Creole of Color community of downtown New Orleans, Louisiana. His older brother Louis Keppard was also a professional musician. Freddie played violin, mandolin, and accordion before switching to cornet...

, Jimmy Wade

Jimmy Wade

Jimmy Wade was an American jazz trumpeter and bandleader.Wade began leading groups in the Chicago area about 1916. He played in California and Seattle, Washington with Lucille Hegamin, and then moved with her to New York City, where they played together until 1922...

, Charles Elgar, and Erskine Tate

Erskine Tate

Erskine Tate was an American jazz violinist and bandleader.Tate moved to Chicago in 1912 and was an early figure on the Chicago jazz scene, playing with his band, the Vendome Orchestra, at the Vendome Theater, which was located at 31st and State Street...

 in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

.

He was influenced by Hungarian folk music

Hungarian folk music

Hungarian folk music includes a broad array of styles, including the recruitment dance verbunkos, the csárdás and nóta.During the 20th century, Hungarian composers were influenced by the traditional music of their nation which may be considered as a repeat of the early "nationalist" movement of the...

 and Roma music

Roma music

Romani music is the music of the Romani people, who have their origins in Northern India, but today live mostly in Europe....

 starting with a visit to Europe in the 1920s, and adapted the music to jazz. In 1927 he started his own group, Eddie South and his Alabamians, named after the Alabam club where they played in Chicago, and, along with pianist and composer Henry Crowder

Henry Crowder

Henry Crowder was an African-American jazz musician. Crowder was an important figure in the European jazz culture of his time.Crowder was born in Gainesville, Georgia to a poor family and was largely a self-taught musician. Crowder began his career playing piano in the brothels of Washington, D.C...

, toured with them in Europe from 1928 to 1930.

On subsequent visits to Europe in the 1930s, he performed and recorded with guitarist Django Reinhardt

Django Reinhardt

Django Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...

 and violinists Stéphane Grappelli

Stéphane Grappelli

Stéphane Grappelli was a French jazz violinist who founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France with guitarist Django Reinhardt in 1934. It was one of the first all-string jazz bands....

 and Michel Warlop

Michel Warlop

Michel Warlop was a French jazz violinist. He was a contemporary of Stephane Grappelli, with whom he played often....

. He also led bands that included pianist Billy Taylor

Billy Taylor

Billy Taylor was an American jazz pianist, composer, broadcaster and educator. He was the Robert L. Jones Distinguished Professor of Music at East Carolina University in Greenville, and since 1994, he was the artistic director for jazz at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in...

 and bassist Milt Hinton

Milt Hinton

Milton John "Milt" Hinton , "the dean of jazz bass players," was an American jazz double bassist and photographer. He was nicknamed "The Judge".-Biography:...

.

A 1951 recording for Chess Records

Chess Records

Chess Records was an American record label based in Chicago, Illinois. It specialized in blues, R&B, soul, gospel music, early rock and roll, and occasional jazz releases....

 with Eddy (sic) South and his Orchestra, credited Johnny Pate

Johnny Pate

Johnny Pate is a jazz bassist who late became a music arranger/producer, and a leading figure in Chicago soul as well as pop/R&B music....

 on bass and arrangements and was also the first of a series of Chess recordings on which Pate collaborated with saxophonist Eddie Johnson

Eddie Johnson (musician)

Edwin Lawrence "Eddie" Johnson was an American jazz and blues tenor saxophonist. He was born in Napoleonville, Louisiana, United States....

.

External links

• [ Discography at AllMusic.com] — Public radio broadcast with audio samples and commentary. — Discography.