Benny Meroff home either conducting the band for dancing or directing a complicated stage show." He recorded for Columbia Records, Okeh Records, and Victor Records, especially at the height of his career in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Meroff disbanded his orchestra around the end of World War II and left music as a profession. Benny Meroff Benny Meroff (1899-1973) was an American dance bandleader active in the swing jazz era. He also played violin, clarinet, and saxophone. Meroff started his career in vaudeville, and put together his own ensemble in the middle of the 1920s. His sidemen included Wild Bill
Teddy Wilson born in Austin, Texas, on November 24, 1912. He studied piano and violin at Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama. After working in Speed Webb's band, with Louis Armstrong, and also understudying Earl Hines in Hines's Grand Terrace Cafe Orchestra, Wilson joined Benny Carter's Chocolate Dandies in 1933. In 1935, he joined the Benny Goodman Trio (which consisted of Goodman, Wilson and drummer Gene Krupa, later expanded to the Benny Goodman Quartet with the addition of Lionel Hampton). The trio performed during the big band's intermissions. By joining the trio, Wilson became one of the first black musicians to perform prominently