Birth name Zelda Louise Smith Years active 1927–1947 Children Joan Denise Archer Instruments trumpet
vocal Died January 18, 2014 | Role Jazz trumpet player Genres Swing music, Big band Name Billie Rogers | |
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Born 31 May 1917
North Plains, Oregon ( 1917-05-31 ) Labels Decca
MCA
V-Disc
Musicraft
Majestic Spouse Jack Archer (m. 1944–1962) Parents William Cody Smith, Bertha Emde Siblings Alice V., Kenneth Gaylord Smith, Lester Smith | ||
Occupation(s) Trumpeter, Bandleader | ||
Billie Rogers (née Zelda Louise Smith (May 31, 1917 – January 18, 2014) was an American jazz trumpeter and singer who was a member of Woody Herman's band from 1941 to 1943. She led her own band in 1943. At the end of that year, she joined Jerry Wald's band and remained a member until October 1945, when she left to form her own sextet.
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Rogers is credited as the first woman to hold a horn position in a major jazz orchestra. She shared the distinction as a pioneering female jazz trumpeter with Valaida Snow.
Woody Herman discovered Rogers in August 1941. After his band had finished for the evening at the Palladium Ballroom Cafe in Hollywood, Herman had gone to a small Los Angeles night club on the advice of his road manager where Rogers was singing and playing trumpet. Impressed, he asked for an introduction. Sammy Cahn, the songwriter, introduced them, and within a few minutes Herman hired her for his Blues on Parade band. She made her debut at the Panther Room of the Sherman Hotel in Chicago.
Growing up
Rogers was born May 31, 1917 in North Plains, Oregon. Her family moved to Rainier, Washington, before she was 2 and remained there until age 13. She attended elementary school and first year of high school at Rainier, a small rural community 17 miles inland from Olympia. Rogers skipped two grades and graduated from high school at Renton, Washington, on the day after her 16th birthday.
She was raised in a family of musicians. Her father, William Cody Smith (1885–1970), played violin, alto sax, and banjo. Her mother, Bertha Emde (née Fleming; 1892–1976) played ragtime piano and accordion. Her older brother, Lester Smith (1913–1936), was proficient on sax. Her younger brother, Kenneth Gaylord Smith (1920–2005), played sax. She also had a younger sister, Alice V. (Mrs. Olaf Hemnes; 1924–1996).
Rainier, Washington
During the years in Rainier, the family formed a band called "Smith's Rainier Entertainers," composed of Billie's father, mother, her brother Les, herself, and a hired drummer. Billie played trumpet and sang through a megaphone.
Rogers began studying piano at age 6. She also began playing trumpet when she was around 8 — when her older brother, Les, decided he didn't care for that particular instrument. Les had learned to play several instruments by the time he graduated from the University of Montana in 1936, mainly piano, saxophone, clarinet and flute. Les was also a prolific arranger. He played baritone horn in the university marching band and was student director of the Missoula High School band. Over the years, Roger's mother expanded her skills to playing organ, accordion, and double-bass; Rogers learned soprano sax, but later had to make a decision as to which instrument to focus on. Trumpet prevailed.
Both she and her brother, Les, were born with perfect pitch, a fact that neither had realized until she was 8 and he was 12. They had both assumed that everyone heard music the way they did. Their parents were astounded and didn't even know what to call it.
Les began attending Washington State College at the age of 16, with a full scholarship. The depression hit and her parents had to bring him home. Les taught piano in Tacoma until he made connections with a local band in Missoula, Montana, and enrolled for his last two years of education at the University of Montana. Les died 3 months after graduation, in 1936, from a ruptured appendix, shortly before the discovery of sulfa and long before antibiotics. He had sent for Rogers when she was 17. They shared an apartment and she played and sung in his band for the intervening years.
Rogers stayed in Missoula until 1941, married Guy C. Rogers (1918–1996) and worked with local musicians. At that time Guy and Billie, who had not children, decided to divorce and she ended up in California at the request of some musician friends.
Woody Herman
When she transferred her union membership from Missoula to Los Angeles, Billie was informed that she couldn't work a steady job for the first six months. However, since there was a shortage of female musicians, the union allowed her to work full-time if she worked with other women. She got a job with a quartet working in a bar in Culver City. They started with practically no business at all, but within a couple of weeks the place was packed every night and celebrities were dropping by. One evening Woody Herman's road manager, Jack Archer, stopped by and invited Billie to audition for Woody, who offered her a job on the spot. She started out sitting in front of the band with the other girl singer, but eventually made her way to the trumpet section.
When she met Jack, he had recently received an honorable discharge from the U.S. Army (1943) and, that same year, had become the road manager of the Woody Herman Orchestra. Rogers stayed with Woody for more than two years; but traveling during the war years was difficult and demanding. While working with Herman, Jack and Billie became engaged. She left the Herman band on October 27, 1943, and moved to Chicago, where she and Jack were married on April 21, 1944. Billie then formed her own big band called the Billie Rogers Orchestra, which performed a couple of years on the east coast. Jack left Herman to manage Billie's band, which he did from July 22, 1944, until the end of 1944, when the group disbanded. At the end of 1944, Rogers joined the Jerry Wald band and remained a member until October 1945, when she left to form her own sextet.
Rogers says that her most enjoyable gig was playing with the Tommy Pederson Band at the Hollywood Palladium on Monday nights, plus other miscellaneous gigs in Los Angeles area.
Jack Archer
Jack Archer built a career as a booking agent, initially for big bands in the one-nighter category, but eventually moving into R&B.
Overlapping with his responsibilities managing Billie's orchestra, Jack was handling bookings for Mills Music, staying on until January 8, 1944, when he then became head of the one-night band department at General Amusement Corporation, a position he held until July 22, 1944.
When Billie Roger's band broke up, Jack Archer went back to booking bands at Frederick Bros. Music Corporation (up until January 1946), then William Morris (February 1946 to 1947), where he replaced Billy Shaw. Then in August 1947, Archer left William Morris to form his own booking agency with Milt Deutsch and Abe Turchen. It was called "Continental Artists" and was based in Hollywood. Continental began handling the bookings of Woody Herman, Noro Morales, and Miguelito Valdes. Archer served as head of Continental and ran its Hollywood office while Deutsch ran its New York office at 1650 Broadway.
In 1949, Billie & Jack had a daughter, Joan Denise Archer.
After Continental, Archer handled bookings for Federal Artists Agency before joining Shaw Artists Corporation in 1950 to head-up its one-night department. Shaw Artists was founded in 1949 by Billy Shaw. When Billy Shaw died on June 23, 1956, Archer took over as vice president and general manager. On April 1, 1957, he then left to form his own booking agency called "Archer Associates", located on West 57th Street in New York City. He sold that firm in December 1957 to Associated Booking Corporation (also known as ABC), a firm headed by Joe Glaser. Archer stayed on to focus on developing a strong R&B line-up, which included the Platters, Dinah Washington, and the Drifters. Archer suffered a slight heart attack in April 1958. He died in 1962.
Their daughter, now known as Denise "Dee" Archer, is an R&B singer, keyboard player, and guitarist, who also is a senior executive with a wireless telecommunications company.
Selected discography
As sideman
With the Woody Herman OrchestraAs leader
The Billie Rogers Orchestra- Blue moon
- How deep is the ocean? Billy Rogers, vocal
- How many hearts have you broken?, Billy Rogers, vocal
- Just close your eyes, Billy Rogers, vocal
- I've got you under my skin
- If I knew then, Billy Rogers, vocal
- Perdido
- Is you is or is you ain't my baby, Billy Rogers, vocal
- An hour never passes, Billy Rogers, vocal
- Pelham panic
As sideman
With the Jerry Wald Orchestra