biography
| name: |
Russell, Pee Wee
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popular name of Charles Ellsworth Russell
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1906–69)
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| biography:
| Jazz clarinet player, born in Maple Wood, Missouri, USA. He travelled the American Midwest with bands from age 16. In 1925, he worked in St Louis with Frankie Trumbauer (1901–56) and Bix Beiderbecke, and thereafter was associated with their coterie of Chicago-based Dixielanders. As part of the entrepreneurial troupe of Eddie Condon (1905–73) for nearly two decades, he played frequently at Nick's famous Dixieland bar in Greenwich Village, in concerts at Carnegie Hall, and on network radio broadcasts. He played the clarinet in short staccato bursts and was perilously spontaneous, winding around in his solos like a maze. In the 1960s, when jazz was freeing its forms and exploring new modalities, he was discovered by a younger audience. He played with Thelonious Monk at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1963, fronted a pianoless quartet, and recorded with a large orchestra (The Spirit of ’67 in 1967). Coleman Hawkins, his colleague for more than 40 years, said, ‘He's always been way out, but they didn't have a name for it then’. |
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