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Chu Berry

Had Chu Berry's life not been cut short when he died at age 33 as the result of an automobile accident, who knows what might have been. But what he did achieve was enough. Considering the brevity of his life, and that his recording career spans a mere decade, it is remarkable that his name continues to loom large in the annals of jazz.

Leon "Chu" Berry was born in Wheeling on Sept. 13, 1908, into a relatively well-to-do family that included a very musical half sister who played piano in a jazz trio that rehearsed in the Berry home, Chu's love of music and the saxophone was born.

Inspired by Coleman Hawkins (whom he heard on tour) to take up the saxophone, he played the alto instrument while at Lincoln High School in Wheeling and at West Virginia State College in Charleston. After playing with his sister for high school dances, Berry's first band experience occurred in a 15-piece group in Wheeling and a college band in Charleston. In summer 1928, Berry returned to the Ohio Valley after a year in college and joined the "swingingest jazz band around," Perry's Broadway Buddies. In 1929, he received his first nationally important professional engagement when he joined the Sammy Stewart band in Columbus and Chicago. Within months he made his first foray into New York and its jazz scene. He switched from alto sax to tenor sax after he joined the Stewart band and met and performed with tenor saxophonist Cecil Scott's band.

Among the major groups with which he played were the bands of Benny Carter, (1930) Teddy Hill, (1933-35) Fletcher Henderson (1936) to whom he contributed the song "Christopher Columbus" and ultimately Cab Calloway, with whom he joined up with in 1937. He performed as sideman or on recordings with many of the best known artists of the era from Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, to Count Basie.

As a member of Cab Calloway's Cotton Club Orchestra, Berry set new standards for the band, and was in the line up with Mario Bauza and a young Dizzy Gillespie. Berry was strongly influenced by Coleman Hawkins, but soon developed his own distinctive style. He was Hawkins’ equal in harmonic sophistication and his superior when it came to swing and drive. Excelling at performing in fast tempos, where his remarkable breath control, unerring sense of time, and even, strong tone production were his forte. He displayed a powerful momentum with an accuracy and fondness for plaintive high notes. . Berry was especially adept at inserting a lot of individuality into a short space; he was brilliant in eight bars, a quality that endeared him to bandleaders.

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Extended Analysis

Chu Berry: Classic Columbia And Victor Sessions

Read "Chu Berry: Classic Columbia And Victor Sessions" reviewed by AAJ Staff


Chu Berry Classic Columbia And Victor Sessions Mosaic Records 2007

Loren Schoenberg gets to the heart of saxophonist Chu Berry's story near the end of his superlative liners when he notes that “Ghost Of A Chance," the 1940 ballad feature recorded by Cab Calloway's Orchestra in response to saxophonist Coleman Hawkins' immortal “Body and Soul," actually presents the one aspect of the tenor man's conception that doesn't date well. Since this ...

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Extended Analysis

Chu Berry: Classic Columbia & Victor Sides

Read "Chu Berry: Classic Columbia & Victor Sides" reviewed by Nic Jones


Chu Berry Classic Columbia & Victor Sides Mosaic Records 2007

This seven-disc set is both a summary of tenor saxophonist Chu Berry's tragically short life and an important contribution to jazz history. It is a “warts and all collection due to some of contexts in which Berry is heard, but in an odd way such contexts actually serve to accentuate his progressive vision and greatness; what we have here in bulk is the work ...

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Mosaic Records Releases Classic Chu Berry Columbia and Victor Sessions

Mosaic Records Releases Classic Chu Berry Columbia and Victor Sessions

Source: All About Jazz

OFTEN UNDER-RATED, ALMOST FORGOTTEN - BUT NOT BY US! THE DREAM CHU BERRY COLLECTION WE HAD TO CREATE. We like to think that every Mosaic set adds something noteworthy to the archive of collected jazz. Our sets might reveal more than you ever knew existed from a favorite artist; provide an outlet for our personal love of an overlooked original; or provide, at last, the definitive library of an acknowledged giant. Those are the measures we aim to accomplish each ...

Enric Peidro
saxophone, tenor

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