Singer/Actor Herb Jeffries Celebrates 100th Birthday

Singer/Actor Herb Jeffries Celebrates 100th Birthday

One night in 1933, Jeffries was singing in a little nightclub in Detroit, Michigan when jazz icon Louis Armstrong walked through the door.  In this interview by amateur jazz historian Tad Calcara, Jeffries says Armstrong heard him sing, pulled him aside, and changed his life.  “He said, ‘Well there's a band in Chicago - that's where you should be now.  And he said 'I'm gonna write you a letter,’” Jeffries said.  Then Armstrong pulled a cocktail napkin off the table.  “He just wrote down on there, said, 'You want to hear this guy's voice.  You'll love him.  I do.’ And he put down ‘Pops,’” Jeffries said.  Armed with only this special “calling card,” Jeffries took the great man’s advice and headed for Chicago where he joined the band led by Erskine Tate.  Soon he was heard and hired by legendary band leader Earl “Fatha” Hines. Singing with Earl Hines, Jeffries traveled to California, where he would land a role and also sing the opening song in the Hollywood western, “Two Gunmen from Harlem.”