Jimmie Lunceford

James Melvin Lunceford (1902 – 1947) was an American jazz alto saxophonist and bandleader of the swing era. In 1927, while teaching high school in Memphis, Tennessee, he organized a student band, the Chickasaw Syncopators, whose name was changed to the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra when it began touring. In the 1930s the Orchestra was considered the equal of Duke Ellington's and Count Basie's.