Biography
Bumps Myers earned recognition as a skilled swing-era tenor saxophonist shaped by Coleman Hawkins while also handling alto and baritone on occasion. Though his professional path brought numerous engaging musical opportunities, he remained largely unknown beyond Los Angeles. He launched his career in 1929 at age seventeen and soon worked as a freelance musician throughout the city, including engagements alongside Curtis Mosby. Between 1934 and 1936 he performed in Shanghai with Buck Clayton’s orchestra and Teddy Weatherford before returning to Los Angeles to play with Lionel Hampton and Les Hite. Myers joined the brief-lived Lee and Lester Young ensemble for 1941-42, appeared with Jimmie Lunceford during two separate periods in 1942 and 1945, and collaborated intermittently with Benny Carter from 1943 through 1948; he also worked with Benny Goodman in 1947 and Red Callender from 1952 to 1954. Several mid-1940s Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts featured him, as did countless studio and live dates—many of them commercial—in the 1950s, among them a 1958 project with Harry Belafonte. Following a 1961-62 tour with Horace Henderson, declining health prompted his retirement. Although he recorded with Sid Catlett in 1945, Myers himself led only six little-known sides issued in 1949 on the Selective and RPM labels.