On September 24th, Herb Jeffries celebrated his 100th birthday. “This velvet-toned jazz baritone and sometime actor was (and perhaps still is) virtually unknown to white audiences. Yet, back in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Herb Jeffries was very big in black-cast films.
Today he is respected and remembered as a pioneer who broke down rusted-shut racial doors in Hollywood and ultimately displayed a positive image as a black actor on celluloid.”
Herb Jeffries remains one of the last of the original singing cowboys still alive (along with Monte Hale) from Hollywood’s early western days. In 2003 he was inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame and was invited to sing for President Bush at the White House. He is also the last surviving member of the great Duke Ellington Orchestra.
Read more here and here. And enjoy this video of him singing “Flamingo,” his signature song with the Duke Ellington Orchestra.
