Biography
During an age when so-called territory bands found their touring options sharply restricted and thus remained tied to regional circuits, trumpeter Lloyd Hunter directed ensembles from both Omaha, NE, and St. Louis, MO. Although outfits of this kind never matched the broader national footprint achieved by the Duke Ellington Orchestra, their personnel nonetheless transmitted considerable influence after moving on. Hunter employed accomplished jazz musicians including Paul Quinichette and Sir Charles Thompson, and he displayed an unusual talent for recruiting drummers named John who later achieved renown. One was "Papa" Jo Jones, born Jonathan Jones, whose contributions to Count Basie's ensemble rank among the finest examples of big-band drumming. Another was Johnny Otis, who performed on drums with Hunter long before fronting his own celebrated R&B revue that likewise served as a proving ground for emerging talent. Hunter also stood apart through sustained work with women musicians, an area largely overlooked by contemporaries. Blues singer and bandleader Victoria Spivey functioned as one of his principal partners, acting as musical director for his group while employing the same unit on her own sessions. Hardships faced by a Black jazz musician of that era were formidable, yet Hunter drew motivation from turn-of-the-century bandleader and musician Josiah Waddle, who had already formed all-Black ensembles across the Midwest before 1900. A dozen years afterward Waddle created an ensemble consisting solely of women. He later mentored the younger trumpeter, bringing Hunter into the band as a sideman following sufficient preparation. Hunter became one of Waddle's most prominent protégés, an outcome that gave the elder musician deep gratification; his former student functioned as a cultural hero who replicated Waddle's achievements on a larger scale. Together the two helped sustain Black cultural life in Nebraska at a time when Waddle had once viewed such development as nearly inconceivable in the late nineteenth century. Conditions remained uneven for Hunter decades afterward, particularly as the emerging rhythmic approach identified with Black Americans met resistance among some Nebraska listeners. The musicians themselves rarely applied the term jazz to the style, a distinction documented across multiple oral histories; the Chicago Jazz Institute's account of Preston Love records the sentiment precisely: "When I was young, whites applied that word to black people's music...It's not a respectful word. We used it only peripherally and jokingly. Duke Ellington despised the word. When I was with Lloyd Hunter, we'd go to little towns in Nebraska and they'd ask, 'Are you gonna play that jazz?'" The inquiry often carried an unmistakably dismissive inflection. Hunter's best-known ensemble, the Lloyd Hunter Serenaders, operated from Omaha and eventually featured vocalist Anna Mae Winburn as front person. Through Winburn another link to Waddle appeared: after leaving Hunter she led the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, an all-female ensemble active through the remainder of the 1940s. Additional Black territory bands in the Omaha vicinity included those directed by Red Perkins, Ted Adams, and Warren Webb. The Spivey collaboration fielded eleven musicians, among them the remarkable Jo Jones. Hunter's most prominent recording remains the 1931 track "Sensational Mood," issued on the Vocation label.