Billy Eckstine

• Born: July 8, 1914
• Birthplace: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• Died: March 8, 1993
• Place of death: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Jazz musician

Eckstine was a groundbreaking singer and bandleader. The first African American to premiere a new song on radio and to record romantic ballads, Eckstine opened doors and influenced musicians who came after him.

Early Life

William Clarence Eckstine (EHK-stin) was born in Pittsburgh in 1914 and moved to Washington, D.C., as a teen. In 1933, he won first place—ten dollars—singing in a local talent contest. His parents wanted him to get an education, so he attended a vocational college before transferring to Howard University on a football scholarship. However, a broken collarbone turned his attention back to singing. He started performing around Washington after changing his name from Eckstein to Eckstine so that he would not be mistaken for Jewish.

In 1937, Eckstine moved to Chicago, which had a more robust music scene. There, he was hired to sing with Earl “Fatha” Hines’s Grand Terrace Orchestra. From 1939 to 1944, Eckstine honed his singing, learned the trumpet, and met many major jazz musicians. His first recording success came with the bluesy “Jelly, Jelly” in 1940. However, his distinctive vibrato and deep baritone voice lent themselves to ballads, a genre dominated by whites. In 1942, Hines persuaded record pr.oducers that Eckstine should record “Skylark.” Hines insisted that the recording would sell, even offering to pay damages if it failed. The record was a smash hit, and Eckstine became the first African American singer to introduce a ballad live on a commercial radio station.

Life’s Work

After leaving Hines’s orchestra, Eckstine built his own group of young, innovative musicians, including Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon, and Dizzy Gillespie. The Billy Eckstine Orchestra began touring in 1944, the first bebop orchestra playing the new sounds of modern jazz. It earned more than $100,000 in ten weeks. The band was famous for its call-and-response improvisations. Eckstine’s trumpet playing was improving, and many of the recordings from this period feature his solo trumpet work. Although it only toured from 1944 to 1946, the band’s huge success made bebop famous and began the careers of many legendary performers. In 1946, Eckstine sang with Count Basie and George Shearing. During the 1940’s, Eckstine charted million-selling hits, including “A Cottage for Sale” and “Prisoner of Love.” In 1946, Eckstine earned Esquire’s New Star Award.

In 1947, the Billy Eckstine Orchestra disbanded and Eckstine embarked on a solo singing career. Turning away from modernist bebop, he recorded lush, string-filled ballads for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), becoming one of its most bankable stars. He released a long string of radio hits, including “I Apologize” and “My Foolish Heart.” Eckstine’s audience grew through the 1950’s, and he was voted Top Male Vocalist in DownBeat’s annual reader poll from 1948 to 1952. His popularity was so great that his 1950 Paramount Theater show drew larger crowds than Frank Sinatra’s thirty-five thousand in 1944. Eckstine also sold out Carnegie Hall that same year. He enjoyed great popularity in Europe as well, especially in Great Britain. A 1957 recording of “Passing Strangers,” a duet with Sarah Vaughan that reached number eighty-two on the American Billboard charts, was a best seller in England both in 1957 and upon its rerelease in 1969. To honor his parents’ wishes, Eckstine graduated from Shaw College in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1974.

Eckstine also was a fashion icon, always dressed impeccably. He even patented a shirt collar, the Mr. B. Collar, which expanded without opening to allow singers and musicians to perform comfortably while wearing dress shirts.

Eckstine produced more than thirty albums between 1950 and 1993 for MGM, Roulette, Mercury, Motown, and other labels. However, Eckstine’s jazz vibrato and mannered singing seemed old-fashioned as the 1960’s began. Although he was no longer in demand, he continued to appear on variety shows, sing in jazz clubs, and perform all over the world. His last major album, No Cover, No Minimum (1960), a live recording from Las Vegas, featured his trumpet playing. His final album, Billy Eckstine Sings with Benny Carter, released in 1986 and nominated for a Grammy Award, showcased Eckstine singing standards such as “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To.” Eckstine died on March 8, 1993, of a heart attack in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Significance

Eckstine challenged the music industry’s perception of black singers by becoming the first African American ballad singer. He helped redefine the jazz singer’s role from fronting an orchestra to singing without accompaniment. He also broke new legal ground for African Americans by including clauses in his contracts that he and his band be permitted to sleep wherever they performed, rather than sleeping on buses or in establishments serving only African Americans. Eckstine insisted that his audiences not be segregated. His commitment to the Civil Rights movement included his participation in the Selma-to-Montgomery March in 1965. He was the first African American pop idol and influenced generations of black singers from Nat King Cole to Teddy Pendergrass to modern performers.

Bibliography

DeVeaux, Scott. The Birth of Bebop: A Social and Musical History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. Using oral history and research, DeVeaux traces the development and significance of bebop in the 1930’s and 1940’s. This excellent jazz resource analyzes the genre and examines its cultural impact.

Kirchner, Bill. The Oxford Companion to Jazz. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2000. Features essays by major jazz figures concerning events and people in jazz history, including Eckstine and the musicians with whom he worked.

Yanow, Scott. BeBop. San Francisco, Calif.: Miller Freeman Books, 2000. Surveys the development and history of bebop and reviews influential recordings. Includes a lot of material about Eckstine and his orchestra.