Jimmie Lunceford
James Melvin Lunceford (
1902 –
1947) was an
American jazz alto
saxophonist and bandleader of the
swing era. In
1927, while teaching high school in
Memphis, Tennessee, he organized a student band, the Chickasaw Syncopators, whose name was changed to the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra when it began touring. In the
1930s the Orchestra was considered the equal of
Duke Ellington's and
Count Basie's.