Joe Thomas 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...

 tenor saxophonist.

Thomas played alto sax under Horace Henderson

Horace Henderson

Horace W. Henderson Born in Cuthbert, Georgia , younger brother of Fletcher Henderson, was an American jazz pianist, organist, arranger, and bandleader....

, but played tenor from the time he joined Stuff Smith

Stuff Smith

Hezekiah Leroy Gordon Smith , better known as Stuff Smith, was a jazz violinist. He is known well for the song "If You're a Viper".-Biography:...

's band onward. He played with Jimmie Lunceford

Jimmie Lunceford

James Melvin "Jimmie" Lunceford was an American jazz alto saxophonist and bandleader in the swing era.-Biography:...

's band from 1933 until Lunceford's death in 1947, where he soloed often and occasionally sang. After Lunceford died, Thomas and Ed Wilcox co-led his ghost band for a year. He played R&B in the early 1950s, but left the music industry to work in the family undertaking

Undertaking

Undertaking may refer to:* The task performed by a funeral director* In business, in particular in "EU English", the term is used interchangeably with Company, i.e. a business entity...

business in the middle of the 1950s. In the 1960s he started playing again occasionally, and recorded again under his own name in the late 1970s and early 1980s.