Tricky Sam Nanton

Joe "Tricky Sam" Nanton (February 1, 1904 – July 20, 1946)

Nanton began playing professionally in Washington, D.C., with bands led by Cliff Jackson and banjoist Elmer Snowden.

From 1923 to 1924, Nanton worked with Frazier's Harmony Five. A year later, he performed with Snowden. At the age of 22, Nanton found his niche in Duke Ellington's Orchestra, when he reluctantly took the place of his friend Charlie Irvis in 1926, and remained with Ellington until his early death in 1946. Together with Ellington's trumpeter Bubber Miley, Nanton is largely responsible for creating the characteristic wah-wah, or wa-wa, effect. Their highly expressive growl and plunger sounds were the main ingredient in the band's early "jungle" sound, that evolved during the band's late 1920s engagement at Harlem's Cotton Club. in San Francisco, California, on July 20, 1946, while on tour with the Ellington Orchestra. His death was an enormous loss for the Ellington Orchestra. While later trombonists, including Tyree Glenn and Quentin Jackson, tried to duplicate Tricky Sam's plunger techniques, no one was able to completely replicate his sound. Nanton had a wide variety of expressions, and his intricate techniques were not well documented.