Novelty songs in 1942 joked about his waistline, yet critics said his voice sounded like high society theater. This deep dive explores the contradictions of James Andrew Rushing, born August 1901 in Oklahoma City to a musical family whose father locked the piano and bought him a violin instead. His mother slipped him the key whenever his father walked down the street, and unlike most blues peers, Rushing received formal training in theory with Zelia Breaux and attended Wilberforce University, giving him the tools to navigate complex big band arrangements.

The episode follows his itinerant 1920s years playing alongside Jelly Roll Morton in Los Angeles, the 1924 night singer Carlyn Williams invited him to the mic and he broke it up, his time with Walter Page's Blue Devils in 1927 and Bennie Moten's band in 1929, and his 13 years as featured v ...