Lucky Millinder

Bandleader Lucky Millinder was born in Alabama and raised in Chicago. He got his start in the music business--even though he didn't play any instrument and, according to some, couldn't even read music--as an emcee, and in 1934 he took over the Mills Blue Rhythm Band, among whom were such respected musicians as Henry 'Red' Allen, Buster Bailey and J.C. Higginbotham. When the band disbanded in 1938, Millinder worked with Bill Doggett's band, then formed his own group, Lucky Millinder and His Band, which quickly became one of the premier bands on the swing circuit. The band was extremely popular in Harlem, especially when it began to shift away from swing music and more towards R&B. Among the band's more prominent members were Dizzy Gillespie and Bull Moose Jackson. Millinder secured a recording contract with Decca Records in 1942. Four of their records reached #1 on the R&B charts. In 1949 he began to reduce the size of his band to become involved in the "combo" music fad that was then sweeping black music. That was the beginning of the end, as the reconstituted band could not regain the level of success it had in its heyday, and in 1952 he dissolved it. Millinder didn't form another band, and became a disc jockey. He died in New York City in 1966.