Booker T. Washington

For many years a fixture around the once-thriving Kansas City jazz scene, Booker T. Washington’s perhaps most obviously association was as an associate of the important Bennie Moten Orchestra — a music group that at numerous occasions also included such top-flight music artists as trumpeter Oran “Warm Lips” Web page, tenor saxophonist Ben Webster, alto saxophonist Buster Smith, vocalist Jimmy Hurrying, and pianist Count number Basie. Washington’s dad and brother had been musicians; he started playing gigs around Kansas Town in the middle-’20s as an adolescent. Washington used Moten from 1929-1933. After departing Moten, he performed in Harlan Leonard’s Rockets from 1933-1935, and with saxophonist LaForest Dent from 1936-1944. Washington was still energetic playing around Kansas Town through the ’70s.