Herb Jeffries, as entrepreneur, helped initiate the singing cowboy movie with an all-black cast produced for black audiences. He also owned jazz clubs in France. After singing in several big bands, Herb Jeffries broke into motion pictures in 1937 in the race film “Harlem on the Prairie”. He became a singing cowboy, known for “The Bronze Buckaroo”. Jeffries has said “My ultimate reward is Denzel Washington. He can play a submarine commander or a policeman or whatever. I’m one of the guys who made that possible, by some trick of fate.” His jazz breakthrough occurred between 1940 and 1942 in … Continue reading Jazz Birthdays: Herb Jeffries (1913) and Theodore “Fats” Navarro (1923)