Paul Webster was a 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...

 trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

 player in the big band

Big band

A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...

 era. He is best remembered for having been Jimmie Lunceford

Jimmie Lunceford

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

's high-note trumpet player (taking over Tommy Stevenson

Tommy Stevenson

Tommy Stevenson was a jazz trumpet player in the big band era. He was the first high note trumpeter to be featured on recordings....

's spot when he left the band). According to some sources, he was a big influence on a young Stan Kenton

Stan Kenton

Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator....

, who later featured high note trumpeters in many of his bands.

Born in Kansas City, Webster attended Fisk University

Fisk University

Fisk University is an historically black university founded in 1866 in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. The world-famous Fisk Jubilee Singers started as a group of students who performed to earn enough money to save the school at a critical time of financial shortages. They toured to raise funds to...

 and worked as an embalmer before switching to music. He played in bands led by George E. Lee

George E. Lee

George Ewing Lee was an American jazz bandleader.Born in Boonville, Missouri, Lee was the older brother of pianist/singer Julia Lee. He played in a band while serving in the Army in 1917; following this he sang in a vocal quartet, and in 1920 he formed an ensemble of his own...

 (1927), Bennie Moten

Bennie Moten

Bennie Moten was a noted American jazz pianist and band leader born in Kansas City, Missouri.He led the Kansas City Orchestra, the most important of the itinerant, blues-based orchestras active in the Midwest in the 1920s, and helped to develop the riffing style that would come to define many of...

 (1927–1928), Tommy Douglas

Tommy Douglas

Thomas Clement "Tommy" Douglas, was a Scottish-born Baptist minister who became a prominent Canadian social democratic politician...

, and Eli Rice before joining Lunceford's band (first briefly in 1931 and then from 1935 to 1944). Following this Webster played lead trumpet in bands led by 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....

 (1948–1949, off and on), Charlie Barnet

Charlie Barnet

Charles Daly Barnet was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader.His major recordings were "Skyliner", "Cherokee", "The Wrong Idea", "Scotch and Soda", "In a Mizz", and "Southland Shuffle".-Early life:...

 (1946–1947 and 1952–1953), Sy Oliver

Sy Oliver

Melvin "Sy" Oliver was a jazz arranger, trumpeter, composer, singer and bandleader...

 (1947), Ed Wilcox (1948–1949), and Count Basie

Count Basie

William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...

 (1950). After 1953 he played trumpet only part-time but still occasionally played with Sy Oliver

Sy Oliver

Melvin "Sy" Oliver was a jazz arranger, trumpeter, composer, singer and bandleader...

's band into the 1960s. Contributed to 'Paul Curry Presents the Friends of Fats' LP: 1959 Golden Crest Label.

Sources

• Determeyer, Eddy. Rhythm Is Our Business: Jimmie Lunceford and the Harlem Express. University of Michigan Press, 2006. ISBN 0472115537
• Yanow, Scott. Trumpet Kings: The Players Who Shaped the Sound of Jazz Trumpet. Backbeat Books, 2001. ISBN 0879306408