Singleton Palmer was an American

United States

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

 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...

 multi-instrumentalist

Multi-instrumentalist

A multi-instrumentalist is a musician who plays a number of different instruments.The Bachelor of Music degree usually requires a second instrument to be learned , but people who double on another instrument are not usually seen as multi-instrumentalists.-Classical music:Music written for Symphony...

 and bandleader

Bandleader

A bandleader is the leader of a band of musicians. The term is most commonly, though not exclusively, used with a group that plays popular music as a small combo or a big band, such as one which plays jazz, blues, rhythm and blues or rock and roll music....

.

Palmer began his career on tuba

Tuba

The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...

, playing with Oliver Cobb late in the 1920s; Cobb's group recorded for Paramount

Paramount Records

Paramount Records was an American record label, best known for its recordings of African-American jazz and blues in the 1920s and early 1930s, including such artists as Ma Rainey and Blind Lemon Jefferson.-Early years:...

 and Brunswick

Brunswick Records

Brunswick Records is a United States based record label. The label is currently distributed by E1 Entertainment.-From 1916:Records under the "Brunswick" label were first produced by the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company...

. From 1931-34 he played with 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....

, then joined Dewey Jackson

Dewey Jackson

Dewey Jackson was an American jazz trumpeter and cornetist.Jackson began playing professionally at an early age, with the Odd Fellows Boys' Band , Tommy Evans , and George Reynolds's Keystone Band. He played with Charlie Creath on riverboats, and then led his own Golden Melody Band from 1920 to 1923...

 until 1941. Following this he played sporadically with George Hudson

George Hudson

George Hudson , English railway financier, known as "The Railway King", was born, the fifth son of a farmer, in Howsham, in the parish of Scrayingham in the East Riding of Yorkshire, north of Stamford Bridge, east of York. He is buried in Scrayingham...

 up to 1948.

Toward the end of the 1940s, Palmer began to get higher-profile performing and recording dates, including with Clark Terry

Clark Terry

Clark Terry is an American swing and bop trumpeter, a pioneer of the fluegelhorn in jazz, educator, NEA Jazz Masters inductee, and recipient of the 2010 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award...

 in 1947 and Jimmy Forrest

Jimmy Forrest

Jimmy Forrest was an African American jazz musician, who played tenor saxophone throughout his career....

 in 1948. Thereafter he played in 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...

's orchestra. Additionally, he played bass on record with blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 musicians such as Big Joe Williams

Big Joe Williams

Joseph Lee Williams , billed throughout his career as Big Joe Williams, was an American Delta blues guitarist, singer and songwriter, notable for the distinctive sound of his nine-string guitar...

 and Sonny Boy Williamson

Sonny Boy Williamson

Sonny Boy Williamson may refer to either of two 20th-century American blues harmonica players, who both recorded in Chicago:*Sonny Boy Williamson I , John Lee Curtis Williamson, "The Original Sonny Boy Williamson", born in Tennessee and associated with Bluebird Records *Sonny Boy Williamson II ,...

.

In 1950 he left Basie's group and started his own band, the Dixieland Six; Robert Carter

Robert Carter

Robert Carter or Bob Carter may refer to:*Robert Carter I of Corotoman, aka King Carter , Virginia colonist*Robert Carter III, United States founding father*Robert Carter , Canadian illustrator...

 was the trombonist for the sextet. This Dixieland jazz

Dixieland Jazz

Dixieland Jazz was a Canadian music television series which aired on CBC Television in 1954.-Premise:The series host was Trump Davidson, a cornet player. He also hosted a radio music series on CBC's Trans-Canada Network.-Scheduling:...

 ensemble continued playing in St. Louis into the 1980s. Palmer became a source for jazz historians late in his life, offering oral history

Oral history

Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews...

 testimonies of his early years in the music industry.