Edgar Sampson

{{Short description|American jazz composer, arranger, and musician}} {{more citations needed|date=October 2011}} {{Infobox musical artist | name = Edgar Sampson | image = | image_size = | landscape =  | alt = | caption = | background = non_vocal_instrumentalist | birth_name = Edgar Melvin Sampson | alias = | birth_date = {{birth date|1907|10|31}} | birth_place = New York City, New York, United States | origin = | death_date = {{death date and age|1973|01|16|1907|10|31}} | death_place = Englewood, New Jersey, United States | genre = | occupation = Composer, arranger, instrumentalist | instrument = Saxophone, violin | years_active = 1924–1960s | label = | website =  }}

'''Edgar Melvin Sampson''' (October 31, 1907 – January 16, 1973),<ref name="LarkinJazz">{{cite book|title=The Guinness Who's Who of Jazz|editor=Colin Larkin|publisher=Guinness Publishing|date=1992|edition=First|isbn=0-85112-580-8|page=349}}</ref> nicknamed "The Lamb",<ref>{{Cite Grove |last=Driggs |first=Frank |title=Sampson, Edgar}}</ref> was an American jazz composer, arranger, saxophonist, and violinist. Born in New York City, he began playing violin aged six and picked up the saxophone in high school. He worked as an arranger and composer for many jazz bands in the 1930s and 1940s. He composed several well-known jazz standards, including "Stompin' at the Savoy", and "Don't Be That Way".

==Life and career== Born in New York City,<ref name="LarkinJazz"/> Sampson began his professional career in 1924 with a violin piano duo with Joe Colman. Through the rest of the 1920s and early 1930s, Sampson played with many bands, including those of Charlie "Fess" Johnson, Duke Ellington, Rex Stewart and Fletcher Henderson.<ref>{{cite book|last=Spellman|first=A.B.|title=Four Lives in the Bebop Business|year=1985|publisher=Limelight Editions|location=New York|isbn=978-0-87910-042-1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SKaaKGMaIMgC&q=Edgar+Sampson&pg=PA164|edition=1st Limelight|page=164}}</ref>

In 1934, Sampson joined the Chick Webb band. It during his period with Webb that Sampson created his most enduring work as a composer, writing "Stompin' at the Savoy" and "Don't Be That Way".<ref name="LarkinJazz"/> He left the Webb band in 1936 with a reputation as a composer and arranger that led to freelance work with Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Red Norvo, Teddy Hill, Teddy Wilson and Chick Webb.<ref name="LarkinJazz"/>

Edgar Sampson became a student of the Schillinger System in the early 1940s.<ref>{{ cite news |newspaper=The New York Amsterdam News | first1=Constance | last1=Curtis | first2=Cholie | last2=Herndon | title=Know your Boroughs Orchestra Men Talk About Show Business | date=April 30, 1949 |page =15}}</ref> He continued to play sax through the late 1940s and started his own band (1949–51).<ref name="LarkinJazz"/> In the late 1940s through the 1950s, he worked with Latin performers such as Marcelino Guerra, Tito Rodríguez and Tito Puente as an arranger.<ref name="LarkinJazz"/> Sampson recorded one album under his own name, ''Swing Softly Sweet Sampson'', in 1956. Due to illness, he stopped working in the late 1960s.{{cn|date=July 2023}}

His daughter, Grace Sampson, studied music and co-wrote the standard "Mambo Inn" with Mario Bauzá and Bobby Woodlen.<ref>{{cite news|title=New York beat|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R7IDAAAAMBAJ|work=Jet|date=November 11, 1954|page=63|publisher = Johnson Publishing Company}}</ref>

== Compositions and arrangements == *"Dark Rapture" (Edgar Sampson, Benny Goodman, Manny Kurtz) *"If Dreams Come True" (Edgar Sampson, Benny Goodman, Irving Mills) *"Lullaby in Rhythm" (Edgar Sampson, Benny Goodman, Clarence Profit, Walter Hirsch) *"Stompin' at the Savoy" (Edgar Sampson, Benny Goodman, Chick Webb, Andy Razaf) *"Hoopdee Whodee (Edgar Sampson) *"I'll Be Back for More" (Edgar Sampson, Candido Camero, Sammy Gallop) *"Happy and Satisfied" (Edgar Sampson, Walter Bishop) *"Cool and Groovy" (Edgar Sampson) *"Blue Lou" (Edgar Sampson, Irving Mills) *"The Blues Made Me Feel This Way" (Edgar Sampson) *"Light and Sweet" (Edgar Sampson, Bill Hardy) *"The Sweetness of You" (Edgar Sampson) *"Don't Be That Way" (Edgar Sampson, Benny Goodman, Mitchell Parish) (Source: Liner notes from ''Swing Softly Sweet Sampson'', Coral Record CRL 57049 (1957)

==References== {{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sampson, Edgar}} Category:1907 births Category:1973 deaths Category:20th-century American jazz composers Category:American music arrangers Category:Duke Ellington Orchestra members Category:Jazz musicians from New York City Category:Swing composers Category:Swing saxophonists Category:20th-century American saxophonists Category:American male jazz composers Category:20th-century American male composers