Cuffee, Ed(ward Emerson)
Cuffee, Ed(ward Emerson)
Cuffee, Ed(ward Emerson) , trombonist; b. Nor-folk, Va., June 7, 1902; d. N.Y., Jan. 3, 1959. He was a boyhood friend of Jimmy Archey He moved to N.Y. in the mid-1920s; shortly afterwards he became a regular on Clarence Williams’s recording sessions. He worked with pianist LeRoy Tibbs at Connie’s Inn in 1929, then worked with Bingie Madison before working with McKinney’s Cotton Pickers (1930–34). During this period Cuffee worked briefly in Ellsworth Reynolds-Kaiser Marshall Bostonians. He was with Fletcher Henderson (1936–39) and gigged in N.Y before joining Leon Abbey (1940). He joined Count Basie in January 1941, left seven months later, worked occasionally with Leon Abbey, and then regularly in the Chris Columbus Band in 1944. He gigged and recorded with Bunk Johnson in late 1947 but left full-time music to work as an electrician, although he continued gigging in the 1950s. Ed Cuffee’s name was once printed as Cuffee Davidson. The error snowballed and for over 30 years he has been mistakenly referred to by this name.
—John Chilton/Lewis Porter