Valaida Snow

I get mixed emotions whenever I learn something new that I feel should've been taught to me as a youngster. I'm excited about the new knowledge, curiosity piqued and then satisfied as part of the previously unknown is unveiled. But I'm also frustrated by the fact that, esp. when it comes to African-American history, all too often the story of our people has been grossly ignored and neglected. Here's someone very interesting that I learned about last year. This woman often returns to my thoughts -- find myself wondering what her life was like, what motivated her and inspired her and irritated her. Think she should be included in the annals of American music history. Here goes (taken from various sources on the Internet):

"'Queen of the Trumpet', Valaida Snow was born on June 2nd in 1905. She was an African-American musician and entertainer. From Cleveland City, Tennessee she was raised in an intensely musical family. Snow was taught by her mother Etta Washington Snow to play cello, bass, violin, banjo, mandolin, harp, accordion, clarinet, saxophone and trumpet. She also sang and danced. By the time she was 15 years old she was entertaining professionally and had decided to concentrate on trumpet and vocals. She had two sisters and three brothers. Both her sisters and one brother were also professional singers. A third brother and a half-brother never sang professionally or played an instrument of any kind.

Feisty, flamboyant and beautiful, Snow managed her own career, played half a dozen instruments, and spoke several languages. Snow was also gifted with an uncannily perfect pitch. The story is told of how she told pianist Eubie Blake that his regular tuning fork was flat simply after hearing him strike while they were together on a train. When they got to the next stop, Blake rushed her to the nearest music shop where the music dealer confirmed Snow's assessment.

Her truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story takes us from her Vaudeville youth in the Jim Crow South to stardom in black musical theatre. By the 1930s, she was an international headliner, and like her more well-known contemporary Josephine Baker, had caused a sensation in Europe.
A review of one of her engagements in the London Express of 1934 proclaimed: "She has a big personality, wails your tear ducts dry, blows a mean trumpet, and conducts as Toscannini never could." Along with Baker, she was a daring pioneer in an expatriation movement of Black entertainers that made both international stars and helped to eventually turn the tide of acceptance back in the US. In the Netherlands, Queen Wilhelmina was so impressed with Snow's talent and flair that she presented the American with a gilded trumpet.

In 1924 Snow attracted attention in the Sissle and Blake show. Then she was in London with Blackbirds, recording with Johnny Claes, Derek Neville, Freddy Gardner and others. She also worked in China and after her return to the USA she headlined in Chicago and Los Angeles before rejoining the Blackbirds in Paris. Snow also played across Europe and in Russia.

In the early 30s she was performing in the Ethel Waters show, Rhapsody In Black, in New York. In the mid-30s she returned to London and then to Hollywood, where she made films with her husband Ananais Berry of the Berry Brothers dancing troupe. After playing New York's Apollo Theater she revisited Europe and the Far East for more shows and films.

Flamboyant, Snow dressed in elegant gowns, traveled in an orchid-colored Mercedes limousine, and outfitted her chauffer and pet monkey in orchid-colored clothes. She became the toast of Paris and London, and was courted by French superstar Maurice Chevalier and American bandleader Earl Hines . She was a savvy businesswoman and spoke seven languages. While her beauty attracted audiences, it was Snow's incredible talent as a jazz trumpeter which truly captivated them. She obtained the nickname "Little Louis" due to her Louis Armstrong-like playing style.

In 1939 while in Scandinavia, Snow was arrested by the invading Germans and interned in a concentration camp at Wester-Faengle. After 18 months she was released as an exchange prisoner and returned to New York. After her return from prison, Snow married Earle Edwards. Damaged both physically and psychologically, she began performing again. Sadly, the spark and vitality that had made her one of the outstanding American entertainers of the 30s had begun to dim.

In her prime, Snow had perfect pitch and was also a skilled transcriber and arranger. Snow played and sang the blues with deep feeling and could more than hold her own on up-tempo swingers. As a phenomenal musician, because she was a woman in the jazz world of the 30s and 40s, she was regarded as something of a curiosity. Valaida Snow died May 30, 1956 in New York City. Strangely enough, she was buried three days later, on her birthday, June 2.

Even today, many jazz fans have difficulty accepting women as anything other than vocalists despite an increasing number of excellent female soloists now recording and performing.
Valaida Snow, almost universally unknown or forgotten today, forged a multiple-threat career - trumpeter and singer, bandleader, dancer, choreographer and arranger. With three strikes against her (she was Black; she was a woman and she was a bandleader), Valaida Snow still managed to hit home runs and she did it by most accounts, with a sly smile. The great American pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines (who also romanced Snow) said of her "She was just a beautiful and exceptionally talented woman.""