Theodore Dudley "Red" Saunders (March 2, 1912 – March 5, 1981)[1] was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. He also played vibraphone and timpani.[2]
Life and career
Saunders was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and after his mother's death moved to Chicago with his sister. He took drum lessons while attending a boarding school in Milwaukee, received a music scholarship to the University of Texas, and became a professional musician in 1928, playing in Stomp King's band.[3][4] He then spent several years touring the country as drummer with Ira Coffey's Walkathonians, a band that played at competitive walkathon events, before joining a revue, Curtis Mosby's Harlem Scandals.[5][6] On returning to Chicago in 1934, he joined a band led by Tiny Parham at the Savoy Ballroom, and thereafter became a well-known drummer in Chicago clubs and hotels. In 1937, Saunders joined the house band at the Club DeLisa, initially led by pianist Albert Ammons, and then briefly by saxophonist Delbert Bright, before taking over as bandleader himself.[7]
Saunders met his wife, Ella, when she was working as a chorus girl and they were playing the same show in California.[10] Saunders and his wife and their two children were the subject of a series of photographs taken in Chicago by Security Administration photographer Jack Delano in April 1942 where their last name was mistakenly transcribed as "Sounders."[11]