Herman "Ivory" Chittison (October 15, 1908 in Flemingsburg, Kentucky

Flemingsburg, Kentucky

Flemingsburg is a city in Fleming County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 3,010 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Fleming County.-Geography:Flemingsburg is located at ....

 – March 8, 1967 in Cleveland, Ohio

Cleveland, Ohio

Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...

) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 jazz pianist

Jazz piano

Jazz piano is a collective term for the techniques pianists use when playing jazz. The piano has been an integral part of the jazz idiom since its inception, in both solo and ensemble settings. Its role is multifaceted due largely to the instrument's combined melodic and harmonic capabilities...

.

He began in Zack Whyte

Zack Whyte

Zack Whyte was an American jazz bandleader, best known for leading the territory band the Chocolate Beau Brummels.Whyte studied at Wilberforce University, where he played banjo with Horace Henderson and arranged pieces for him. He led his own Cincinnati-based bands from the early 1920s, and put...

's band in 1928. In his early days he worked with Ethel Waters

Ethel Waters

Ethel Waters was an American blues, jazz and gospel vocalist and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, and pop music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts, although she began her career in the 1920s singing blues.Her best-known recordings includes, "Dinah", "Birmingham Bertha",...

, Adelaide Hall

Adelaide Hall

Adelaide Hall was an American-born U.K.-based jazz singer and entertainer.Hall was born in Brooklyn, New York and was taught to sing by her father...

, and Clarence Williams. In the mid-1930s he was associated with Willie Lewis

Willie Lewis

Willie Lewis is a rockabilly recording artist and founder of The Rock-A-Billy Record Company, a record label based in Denver, Colorado. He started the label in order to release rare and authentic rockabilly recordings, most of which were pressed on colored vinyl between 1982 and 1998...

's band and toured Europe with them. Later he and Bill Coleman

Bill Coleman

William Johnson Coleman was a jazz trumpeter from the swing era.He had his musical debut in 1927. Coleman's first recordings were with the Luis Russell orchestra, but all solos on record went to the rising star Henry "Red" Allen. This led to Bill Coleman's departure from the band. By 1935 he...

led the "Harlem Rhythm makers".

External links

Herman Chittison was identified by the announcer as the pianist in the background of a radio program called "Casey, Crime Photographer," during the Forties, although the entry in Wikipedia for the musician is listed as Teddy Wilson.