Huey Long (singer) Huey Long (singer) Huey Long (April 25, 1904 – June 10, 2009) was an American jazz and swing singer-songwriter and musician and was a member of the close harmony vocal traditional pop group The Ink Spots. Born in Sealy, Texas, Long began his musical career in 1925 playing banjo for Frank Davis' Louisiana Jazz Band, based in Houston. He switched from the banjo to the guitar after moving to Chicago, where he appeared at the 1933 World's Fair with Texas Guinan's Cuban Orchestra. He performed with artists such as Lil Armstrong and Fletcher Henderson, and his career also encompassed sideman,
1940s in jazz of the time initially met with a divided, sometimes hostile response among fans and fellow musicians, especially established swing players, who bristled at the new harmonic sounds. To hostile critics, bebop seemed to be filled with "racing, nervous phrases". Despite the initial friction, by the 1950s bebop had become an accepted part of the jazz vocabulary. The most influential bebop musicians included saxophonist Charlie Parker, pianists Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Clifford Brown, and drummer Max Roach. The swing era lasted until the mid-1940s, and produced popular tunes such as Duke Ellington's "Cotton Tail" (1940) and