Historical Dictionary of Jazz. John S. Davis
but by the late 1960s, lip problems interfered with his career, and despite surgery he was forced to abandon playing in favor of arranging. He briefly played again during a U.S. State Department tour from 1977 to 1979 but did not play again afterward. In 1987 he formed his own big band that performed his compositions and arrangements and remained active with the band until a week before his death.
CLEVELAND, JIMMY (1926–2008)
A trombonist, he played with his family band until he joined Lionel Hampton’s in 1950. After working with Hampton, he went on to play with numerous other leaders, including Dizzy Gillespie, Donald Byrd, Miles Davis, Gil Evans, James Moody, Gerry Mulligan, Oliver Nelson, and Wes Montgomery, among others. After moving to Los Angeles around 1969, Cleveland worked in the band for The Merv Griffin Show until 1977 and recorded for Quincy Jones. He was one of the most recorded jazz trombonists of the 1950s and 1960s.
CLIMAX
Record label. It issued five Bill Russell/George Lewis recordings in 1943.
CLOONEY, ROSEMARY (1928–2002)
A vocalist and actress, Rosemary Clooney started singing with her sister Betty, eventually landing a spot alongside Tony Pastor, touring and doing one-night shows. Eventually Rosemary would sign with Columbia Records in 1950 and go on to make several hits, including “Tenderly,” which would later become her theme song. She also began her career as an actress in 1953. She semiretired in the 1960s but in the 1970s restarted her career and made many popular records on the Concord label, many of which were tributes to songwriters including Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, and several others. She continued to perform late in her life and was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys in 2002 before passing away from lung cancer later that same year.
CLOUDS OF JOY
Alternatively known as Dark Clouds of Joy or Twelve Clouds of Joy, it was a band started by Terrence Holder and later taken over by Andy Kirk. The group was active between 1929 and 1948.
CLUBS
Typically refers to a venue that can be a nightclub, bar, restaurant, or any other location that has music. Clubs were central to the evolution of jazz, whether as a performance space or a jam session location. See also BIRDLAND; FIVE SPOT; MINTON’S PLAYHOUSE; MONROE’S UPTOWN HOUSE; ONYX; ONYX.
C-MELODY SAXOPHONE
A saxophone pitched in C; notable performers include Frankie Trumbauer.
COBB, JIMMY (1929–2020)
Cobb started working locally in Washington, D.C., with Charlie Rouse, Benny Golson, Billie Holiday, and others before joining Earl Bostic in 1951. Later that year he joined Wynton Kelly in the trio that accompanied Dinah Washington, a group he would play with until 1956. In 1956 and 1957 he joined the Adderley brother’s quintet, and in 1958 he and Cannonball Adderley joined Miles Davis, during which time they recorded the landmark jazz album Kind of Blue (1959). Cobb recorded during this period with artists including John Coltrane, Kenny Dorham, Wayne Shorter, Donald Byrd, Wes Montgomery, and various others. In 1962 he formed a trio with Wynton Kelly and Paul Chambers that would last until Chambers’s death in 1969. Thereafter he accompanied Sarah Vaughan during the 1970s and appeared with Nat Adderley during the 1980s. During the late 1990s he formed his own group, Jimmy Cobb’s Mob, in New York. In June 2008, Cobb was the recipient of the Don Redman Heritage Award, and in 2009 he received a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Award.
COBBLESTONE
A record label established in New York in 1972, it included recordings by artists Sonny Stitt and Jimmy Heath, among others.
COBHAM, BILLY (1944–)
A percussionist born in Panama, Billy Cobham’s family moved to New York when he was three years old. By the late 1960s he was playing in sessions and performing with Horace Silver, among others. In 1969 he formed the jazz-rock group Dreams with Michael and Randy Brecker and stayed with the group until 1971, also recording with Miles Davis during this time. After Dreams, Cobham joined John McLaughlin and his Mahavishnu Orchestra, where he achieved notoriety as a jazz-rock and fusion drummer. He was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013.
CODONA
A free jazz/world music trio formed in 1978 by Collin Walcott, Don Cherry, and Naná Vasconcelos. It was active until Walcott’s death in 1984.
COKER, JERRY (1932–)
A saxophonist and educator, Jerry Coker left Indiana University to tour with Woody Herman from 1953 to 1954. He recorded briefly in Paris, in San Francisco, and also with Mel Lewis before moving to the West Coast and playing briefly with Stan Kenton. After 1960, he became known for his work as an educator and was appointed to several successive university positions, including the University of Tennessee, where he was a professor of music from the 1980s through the 2000s. He is also the author of numerous jazz education texts.
COLE, NAT “KING” (1919–1965)
American pianist and singer, Nat “King” Cole was born in Alabama, and in 1921 his family moved to Chicago, where he learned how to play piano by ear from his mother. In 1936 he and his brother joined the tour of the show Shuffle Along; he was later stranded in Los Angeles when the show folded. In Los Angeles he formed a trio with Oscar Moore and Wesley Prince; although the members would change, his trio would stay active until 1950. The instrumentation of the trio (piano/guitar/bass) would inspire other pianists including Oscar Peterson and Ahmad Jamal to form similar groups. Gradually adding his vocals to his performances, and after a series of hits including “The Christmas Song” (1946) and “Nature Boy” (1948), Cole completed the transformation from jazz pianist to pop vocalist with his recording of “Mona Lisa” in 1950. He would continue to release a number of successful pop albums before dying from lung cancer.
COLE, RICHIE (1948–2020)
An American alto saxophonist, Cole started playing when he was 10 years of age in his hometown of Trenton, New Jersey. Richie Cole studied with Phil Woods in high school and attended the Berklee College of Music. He joined Buddy Rich in 1969, and during the 1970s he played with several big bands including that of Lionel Hampton. From 1973 to 1979 he performed with vocalist Eddie Jefferson. During the 1980s and 1990s, Cole led his own band named Alto Madness. Cole has performed at the Village Vanguard and Carnegie Hall and has given a command performance for the Queen of England. He has recorded more than 50 albums and CDs and served on the boards of the National Jazz Service Organization and the National Endowment for the Arts, where he served as chair for one year.
COLE, WILLIAM RANDOLPH “COZY” (1909–1981)
An American percussionist, in 1930 he recorded with Jelly Roll Morton and afterward played in the big bands of Blanche Calloway, Benny Carter, and Willie Bryant. He spent 1936 to 1938 with the Onyx Club band led by Stuff Smith and achieved notoriety as a soloist during a four-year stint with Cab Calloway from 1938 to 1942. He studied at Juilliard in the mid-1940s and performed in various groups in the 1940s until replacing Sid Catlett in Louis Armstrong’s