Addison, Bernard (S.; Bunky)
Addison, Bernard (S.; Bunky)
Addison, Bernard (S.; Bunky), jazz guitarist, banjoist; b. Annapolis, Md., April 15, 1905; d. Rockville Centre, N.Y., Dec. 18, 1990. Addison played violin and mandolin as a child, and moved to Washington, D.C. in 1920. He was soon co-leading a band with Claude Hopkins, worked for a while in Oliver Blackwell’s Clowns, then went to N.Y. with Sonny Thompson’s Band and also worked in the Seminoie Syncopators in 1925. From 1925 until 1929, Addison worked mainly for Ed Small, first as a sideman, then leading his own band. From 1928 he concentrated on guitar, working with, among others, Louis Armstrong at the Cocoanut Grove in N.Y., Art Tatum in Toledo, Ohio (1931–32), and Fletcher Henderson (from early 1933 until the summer of 1934). Addison toured America and Europe with The Mills Brothers from 1936 until 1938, worked with Stuff Smith in 1939, then mostly led his own groups until army service in World War II. He toured with The Ink Spots in the late 1950s and continued freelancing in the 1960s, when he worked mainly as a teacher.
—John Chilton Who’s Who of Jazz /Lewis Porter