Tommy Stevenson 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 was the first high note trumpeter to be featured on recordings.

Nicknamed "Steve," Tommy joined Jimmie Lunceford

Jimmie Lunceford

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

's band in 1933, and recordings from that time feature him hitting notes that no trumpeter had been recorded hitting before. His solos, like those on the Lunceford recordings "White Heat" and "Rhythm Is Our Business," were later recreated note-for-note by trumpeters such as Paul Webster

Paul Webster (jazz)

Paul Webster was a jazz trumpet player in the big band era. He is best remembered for having been Jimmie Lunceford's high-note trumpet player...

 and Ollie Mitchell. Tommy created much of the vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

-style choreography that made the Lunceford band so popular during this period, and this, combined with the increasing audience attention he was receiving for his high-note solos, caused him to demand from Lunceford top billing. This was denied, so in March 1935 he left Lunceford's band. Although he never regained the popularity he had with the Lunceford organization, he did go on to play and/or record with big bands led by Blanche Calloway

Blanche Calloway

Blanche Calloway was a Jazz singer, bandleader, and composer from Baltimore, Maryland. She is not as well known as her younger brother Cab Calloway, but she may have been the first woman to lead an all male orchestra. Cab Calloway often credited her with being the reason he got into show business...

 (1935–1936), Don Redman

Don Redman

Donald Matthew Redman was an American jazz musician, arranger, bandleader and composer.Redman was announced as a member of the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame on May 6, 2009....

 (1936–1940), Coleman Hawkins

Coleman Hawkins

Coleman Randolph Hawkins was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Hawkins was one of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument. As Joachim E. Berendt explained, "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn"...

, Lucky Millinder

Lucky Millinder

Lucius Venable "Lucky" Millinder was an American rhythm and blues and swing bandleader. Although he could not read or write music, did not play an instrument and rarely sang, his showmanship and musical taste made his bands successful...

, Slim Gaillard

Slim Gaillard

Bulee "Slim" Gaillard was an American jazz singer, songwriter, pianist, and guitarist, noted for his vocalese singing and word play in a language he called "Vout"...

 and Cootie Williams

Cootie Williams

Charles Melvin "Cootie" Williams was an American jazz, jump blues, and rhythm and blues trumpeter.-Biography:...

, mostly playing lead trumpet. While playing with Cootie's band in New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 in 1944 he contracted lobar pneumonia

Lobar pneumonia

Lobar pneumonia is a form of pneumonia that affects a large and continuous area of the lobe of a lung.It is one of the two anatomic classifications of pneumonia .- Symptoms :...

and died suddenly at the age 30.

Sources

• Determeyer, Eddy. Rhythm Is Our Business: Jimmie Lunceford and the Harlem Express. University of Michigan Press, 2006. ISBN 0-472-11553-7
• "Scream Trumpet" - audio clips
• Yanow, Scott. Trumpet Kings: The Players Who Shaped the Sound of Jazz Trumpet. Backbeat Books, 2001. ISBN 0-87930-640-8