Rex Stewart

Rex William Stewart Jr. (February 22, 1907 – September 7, 1967) Stewart dropped out of high school to become a member of the Ragtime Clowns led by Ollie Blackwell. He was with the Musical Spillers led by Willie Lewis in the early 1920s, then with Elmer Snowden, Horace Henderson, Fletcher Henderson, Fess Williams, and McKinney's Cotton Pickers. He toured in Europe and Australia with Jazz at the Philharmonic from 1947 to 1951.

Beginning in the early 1950s, he worked in radio and television and wrote jazz criticism for the Los Angeles Times He also appeared in Hellzapoppin' (1941) and The Sound of Jazz (1957) telecast.

Discography Big Jazz with Jack Teagarden (Atlantic, 1953) Rex Stewart Plays Duke Ellington with Illinois Jacquet (Grand Award, 1955) The Big Challenge with Cootie Williams (Jazztone, 1957) Porgy & Bess Revisited with Cootie Williams (Warner Bros., 1959) Chatter Jazz with Dicky Wells (RCA Victor, 1959) Henderson Homecoming (United Artists, 1959) Rendezvous with Rex (Felsted, 1959) The Happy Jazz of Rex Stewart (Swingville, 1960) Rex Stewart and the Ellingtonians (Riverside, 1960) Redhead (Design, 1960) The Rex Stewart Memorial Album (Prestige, 1969) The Irrepressible Rex Stewart with John Dengler (Jazzology, 1980) Rex Stewart with the Alex Welsh Band (Jazzology, 2004)