Cecil Carpenter

Cecil Carpenter – Trombone player. Cecil Carpenter played the trombone with Indy’s all-black Pickaninny Band, which was a military-type brass band that traveled with a musical entitled In Old Kentucky. Carpenter traveled to Atlantic City with the troupe of In Old Kentucky in 1913. In the 1920s, Carpenter was part of the New York based Jazz Hounds, which backed blues singer Mamie Smith. (The Jazz Hounds, which recorded prolifically on Okeh from 1920 to 1931, deserve a place in history for playing on the first recorded blues song, Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues” of 1920.) Other members of the Jazz Hounds included saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and trumpeter Bubber Miley.