Harry White 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...

 trombonist.

As a teenager, White played drums, then switched to trombone after moving to Washington, D.C around 1919. In the 1920s he played with Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...

, Elmer Snowden

Elmer Snowden

Elmer Snowden was a banjo player of the jazz age. He also played guitar and, in the early stages of his career, all the reed instruments. He contributed greatly to jazz in its early days as both a player and a bandleader, and is responsible for launching the careers of many top musicians...

, and Claude Hopkins

Claude Hopkins

Claude Driskett Hopkins was an American jazz stride pianist and bandleader.-Biography:Claude Hopkins was born in Alexandria, Virginia in 1903. Historians differ in respect of the actual date of his birth. His parents were on the faculty of Howard University...

, then started a family band called the White Brothers Orchestra in 1925. This ensemble played the mid-Atlantic states for several years.

Late in the 1920s, White played with Luis Russell

Luis Russell

Luis Russell was a jazz pianist and bandleader.Luis Carl Russell was born on Careening Cay, near Bocas del Toro, Panama, in a family of Afro-Caribbean ancestry. His father was a music teacher, and young Luis learned to play violin, guitar, trombone, and piano...

, then joined the Mills Blue Rhythm Band

Mills Blue Rhythm Band

The Mills Blue Rhythm Band was an American big band of the 1930s.The band was formed in Harlem in 1930, with reedman Bingie Madison the first of its many leaders. It started life as the Coconut Grove Orchestra, changing to Mills Blue Rhythm Band when Irving Mills became its manager in 1931...

 in 1931. The following year he joined the orchestra of Cab Calloway

Cab Calloway

Cabell "Cab" Calloway III was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was strongly associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City where he was a regular performer....

, working as an arranger and composer in addition to duties on trombone. One of Calloway's trumpeters, Edwin Swayzee, overheard White use the term "jitterbug", and wrote a tune called "The Jitterbug" because of it; Calloway's 1934 recording of it brought the term into widespread currency. He returned to play under Russell in 1935 while Russell's band backed Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....

. He quit playing for part of the 1930s, then later played with Manzie Johnson

Manzie Johnson

Manzie Johnson was an American jazz drummer.Johnson was raised in New York, where he played piano and violin before switching to drums. He worked with Willie Gant's Ramblers , June Clark, Elmer Snowden, Joe Steele, Fats Waller, Jelly Roll Morton , James P...

, Hot Lips Page, Edgar Hayes

Edgar Hayes

Edgar Hayes was an American jazz pianist and bandleader.Hayes attended Wilberforce University, where he graduated with a degree in music in the early 1920s. In 1922 he toured with Fess Williams, and formed his own group, the Blue Grass Buddies, in Ohio in 1924...

, and Bud Freeman

Bud Freeman

Lawrence "Bud" Freeman was a U.S. jazz musician, bandleader, and composer, known mainly for playing the tenor saxophone, but also able at the clarinet. He had a smooth and full tenor sax style with a heavy robust swing. He was one of the most influential and important jazz tenor saxophonists of...

.