Eckstine, Billy

July 8, 1914
March 8, 1993

Popular singer and bandleader William Clarence "Billy" Eckstine was born in Pittsburgh, the youngest of three children. His family moved several times in his early childhood, and he attended high school in Washington, D.C. He later attended the St. Paul Normal and Industrial School in Lawrenceville, Virginia, and Howard University.

Eckstine began his career in show business as a singer and nightclub emcee in Buffalo, Detroit, and Chicago. In 1939 he was hired as the main vocalist for the big band of Earl "Fatha" Hines. While with Hines, he introduced Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Sarah Vaughan to the Hines band. After a number of hit recordings, including "Jelly, Jelly" (1940) and "Skylark" (1942), he left Hines in 1943.

In 1944 Eckstine organized his own big band, with personnel that included many up-and-coming bebop musicians, including Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon, and Art Blakey. When, for financial reasons, he was obliged to abandon the band in 1947, he became a solo singer. His smooth baritone was particularly well-suited for ballads. In the late 1940s and early 1950s his popularity rivaled that of Frank Sinatra. He was one of the first black singers to transcend the race market and to become a national sex symbol.

Eckstine spent the next several decades as a performer in nightclubs, often accompanied by pianist Bobby Tucker. He also appeared in such films as Skirts Ahoy (1953), Let's Do It Again (1975), and Jo Jo Dancer: Your Life Is Calling (1986). "Mr. B," as he was widely known, occasionally played the trumpet but was primarily known as a singer. He influenced several generations of African-American singers, including Joe Williams, Arthur Prysock, and Lou Rawls. He died in Pittsburgh.

See also Blakey, Art (Buhaina, Abdullah Ibn); Davis, Miles; Gillespie, Dizzy; Jazz; Parker, Charlie; Vaughan, Sarah

Bibliography

Burn, Jim. "The Billy Eckstine Band." Jazz Monthly 13, no. 11 (1968): 6.

Dance, Stanley. The World of Earl Hines. New York: Scribner, 1977. Reprint, New York: Da Capo, 1985.

Gibson, F. "The Billy Eckstine Band." Jazz Journal 23, no. 5 (1970): 2–3.

Southern, Eileen. "'Mr. B' of Ballad and Bop." The Black Perspective in Music 7 (1979): 182–190; 8 (1980): 54–60.

Travis, Dempsey J. An Autobiography of Black Jazz. Chicago: Urban Research Institute, 1983.

eddie s. meadows (1996)
Updated bibliography