Emmett Berry - Musicale Du Jour (2021) Hi Res

He's there in the classic "Great Day in Harlem" photograph, but it would have been hard to take many photos of happening jazz bands or Harlem scenes from the '30s and '40s without Emmett Berry's smiling face. Not that he would be smiling; actually, he would probably be too busy playing trumpet. Jazz fans have enjoyed this blowing, sometimes without knowing his name. There is no doubt about the former assertion, since Berry was both a key member of the Count Basie and Fletcher Henderson big bands, as well as one of the prize sidemen and horn soloists assembled to record singer Bille Holiday's most enduring sides. Berry came to New York City from Georgia when he was 18, and within a year was playing in the Henderson band. Not bad for a Southern boy in the big city, since this was one of the most popular groups of that jazz-crazy period. The assignment of replacing Roy Eldridge must have been daunting but perhaps also natural, since all the trumpet players of that era were finding their own voice through close examination of the Eldridge style, if not simply engaging in outright mimicry of the man. Berry hung with the Henderson band for three years, then changed Hendersons, joining a rival band led by brother Horace Henderson.