Omer Simeon

Omer Victor Simeon (July 21, 1902 – September 17, 1959)<ref name="LarkinJazz">Template:Cite book</ref> was an American jazz clarinetist. He also played soprano, alto, and baritone saxophone and bass clarinet.

Biography

The son of a cigar maker, Omer Simeon was born in New Orleans, Louisiana.<ref name="LarkinJazz"/> His family moved to Chicago, Illinois.<ref name="LarkinJazz"/> He learned clarinet from the New Orleans musician Lorenzo Tio, Jr. and started playing professionally in 1920.<ref name="LarkinJazz"/>

He worked in Chicago and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with various bands, including Jimmy Bell's Band and Charlie Elgar's Creole Orchestra.<ref name="AM">Template:Cite web</ref>

Starting in 1926, he began playing with Jelly Roll Morton, and made a well regarded series of recordings with Morton's Red Hot Peppers<ref name="AM" /> and smaller groups. Simeon also taught music. In 1927, he joined King Oliver's Dixie Syncopators with whom he moved to New York City.<ref name="LarkinJazz"/> After time back in Chicago with Elgar, he joined the Luis Russell in Manhattan, then again returned to Chicago in 1928 to play with the Erskine Tate Orchestra.<ref name="LarkinJazz"/> In 1931, he began a 10-year stint with Earl Hines.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In the 1940s, he worked in the bands of Coleman Hawkins and Jimmie Lunceford.<ref name="AM" /> After some recordings with Kid Ory's band, he spent most of the 1950s with the Wilbur de Paris band,<ref name="LarkinJazz"/> including a tour of Africa in 1957. In 1954, he played saxophone in a duet with Louis Armstrong on trumpet in Armstrong's popular Dixieland recording of "Skokiaan."

Omer Simeon died of throat cancer in New York City at the age of 57.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>