HAPPY HUMP DAY, P.O.U.!
We continue our series on African American Women Bandleaders….
ERNESTINE “TINY” DAVIS
Queen of the Trumpet
Ernestine “Tiny” Davis (1907-1994) grew up in Memphis, TN. At 13, after hearing the trumpets in the school band, she asked her mother for one. She got her only instruction in school and practiced “two or three hours a day.”
Later, Louis Armstrong became her biggest influence; she would listen to his records and play along with them. She moved to Kansas City, then a hotspot of jazz, played in nightclubs for “two dollars a night” and listened to other musicians around town.
During the mid-1930s, she toured with the Harlem Playgirls. In 1941 Jesse Stone recruited her for the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, then the best-known and most touted all-female big band. Nicknamed “Tiny” because of her large size, she became a feature attraction, singing and playing trumpet with them for almost 10 years.
In 1947 she left the band to form her own group, Tiny Davis and her Hell Divers. They played the Apollo and other New York clubs. After touring Puerto Rico, Jamaica and Trinidad, she settled in Chicago and kept on playing. “Never done nothin’ else but blow the trumpet,” she said.
She and her partner Ruby Lucas owned Tiny and Ruby’s Gay Spot in Chicago during the ’50s. Tiny & Ruby: Hell Divin’ Women, a 1988 film about them directed by Greta Schiller and Andrea Weiss won Best Documentary at the San Francisco Film & Video Festival. She died in 1994.
(SOURCE: International Women’s Brass Conference)
Ms. Davis performing “How ‘Bout That Jive” with the International Sweethearts of Rhythm:
Here’s the 1988 short film, Tiny & Ruby: Hell Divin’ Women, which chronicles Ms. Davis’ life, career and her relationship with her partner of 42 years, Ruby Lucas. As you’ll see, Ms. Davis had NFTG!