Sweatman, Wilbur (C)
Sweatman, Wilbur (C)
Sweatman, Wilbur (C), ragtime-flavored clarinetist, leader, composer; b. Brunswick, Mo., Feb. 7, 1882; d. N.Y., March 9, 1961. Sweatman played three clarinets at once in touring shows from the late 1890s, and continued to perform when he moved to N.Y. in 1913. He led Sweatman’s Original Jazz Band from 1918-21, recording for a variety of labels. In 1923, he hired a group of young Washington, D.C.-based musicians—including Duke Ellington—to play with him in N.Y. The job failed to materialize, but Ellington and friends remained in the city and formed the popular Washing-tonians group. Beginning in the 1930s, Sweatman concentrated on music publishing and acting as executor for Scott Joplin’s estate. He composed “Down Home Rag” and other rag-flavored works.
—John Chilton/Lewis Porter