Emmett Matthews

Jazz saxophonist and singer, born c. 1902 in St. Louis. After working in St. Louis in the early 1920s, Matthews moved to New York and played with Edgar Hayes and Bill Benford; led his own band there (1930) and in Chicago (1931). Recorded with Fats Waller in mid-1930s, and with a group of Waller's sidemen in 1936, released as Emmett Matthews And His Orchestra. During the 1940s-1950s he worked with a vocal group led by Steve Gibson.