Cootie Williams was born Charles Melvin Williams on July 10, 1911 in Mobile, Alabama. His use of mutes and expressive techniques made him one of the more distinctive jazz musicians of his era.

Williams was a self-taught trumpet player and began touring the Young Family Band at the age of 14. Playing C melody saxophone in that group was Lester Young just two years older than Cootie. In 1928 Williams moved to New York City and played briefly with both the Chick Webb and Fletcher Henderson bands. He made his first appearance on record that same year with stride piano master James P. Johnson.

Only a year later he replaced plunger mute pioneer Bubber Miley in the trumpet section of the Duke Ellington Orchestra, then the house band at Harlem’s Cotton Club. Williams had greater technical abilities and his improvisation was more harmonically complex than Miley’s. He also expanded his sound palette through the use of various mutes. During his eleven years with Ellington, Williams was featured in compositions that Duke wrote especially for him, including Echoes of Harlem and Concerto for Cootie.

After leaving the Ellington ensemble in 1940 Cootie Williams spent a year playing in the Benny Goodman Orchestra and then spent most of the rest of the decade leading his own group. In the 1950s he led rhythm and blues and jump groups before re-joining Ellington in 1962. He stayed with the band until after Duke’s death in 1974. Williams was a featured performer during the halftime show of the Super Bowl in 1975 and was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1991. Cootie Williams passed away on September 15, 1985 at the age of 74 due to a kidney ailment. He is remembered as a singular jazz stylist and an important member of the Ellington Orchestra.

Here is a link to Concerto for Cootie recorded by the Duke Ellington Orchestra in 1940:

"CONCERTO FOR COOTIE"