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This Week in Texas Music History: Cedric Haywood


by Stephen Becker 30 Dec 2011 1:06 PM

This Week in Texas Music History, we’ll celebrate one of the state’s most versatile and prolific jazz musicians.

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Art&Seek presents This Week in Texas Music History. Every week, we’ll spotlight a different moment and the musician who made it. This week, Texas music scholar Gary Hartman celebrates one of the state’s most versatile and prolific jazz musicians.

You can also hear This Week in Texas Music History on Sunday at precisely 6:04 p.m. on KERA radio. But subscribe to the podcast so you won’t miss an episode. And our thanks to KUT public radio in Austin for helping us bring this segment to you. And if you’re a music lover, be sure to check out Track by Track, the bi-weekly podcast from Paul Slavens, host of KXT’s The Paul Slavens Show, heard Sunday night’s at 8.

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This Week in Texas Music History, we’ll celebrate one of the state’s most versatile and prolific jazz musicians. Piano player Cedric Haywood was born Dec. 31, 1914, in Houston. From 1935 to 1940, Haywood performed with the Milt Larkin band, which included such influential Texas artists as Illinois Jacquet and Arnett Cobb. Cedric Haywood also played with Lionel Hampton’s Orchestra in 1941, before rejoining the Milt Larkin band. Haywood worked with a number of popular artists throughout his career, including Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, Brew Moore and trombonist Kid Ory. Cedric Haywood went on to record and perform throughout the United States and Europe. In 1963, he returned to Houston, where he worked with Texas blues legend Lightnin’ Hopkins and led his own jazz band until his death on Sept. 9, 1969.

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