Earl “Fatha” Hines (1905–1983)

Earl Kenneth “Fatha” Hines was born December 28, 1905, in Duquesne, Pennsylvania, and played piano professionally in northern Appalachia during his early career. Hines is best remembered as an innovative jazz pianist, but it was as the leader of a big band that he first achieved widespread recognition. He formed this band in Chicago and toured extensively across the United States, particularly in the Appalachian region and the Midwest.

Hines studied classical piano as a child and began per- forming professionally in the Pittsburgh area as a teenager. He moved to Chicago and worked as a pianist for several years; his most significant association in the 1920s was with Louis Armstrong, with whom Hines made several influential recordings, notably “West End Blues” and the trumpet- piano duet “Weather Bird.” In 1928 Hines’s band began a twelve-year engagement at the new Grand Terrace Ballroom in Chicago; the band continued to tour until 1948, when Hines quit. For the remainder of his career, Hines worked primarily with smaller groups and as a solo pianist. His career experienced a revival beginning in the 1960s, and he performed all over the world until shortly before his death on April 22, 1983.

Hines was a pivotal figure in jazz history, both as a pianist and as a bandleader. His big band featured future bebop giants Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Hines’s virtuoso piano style influenced countless jazz pianists; often called trumpet- piano style, it featured linear single-note lines, brilliant octave tremolos, and ingenious rhythmic displacements.