Artist Biography
Trombonist John Ewing carried not only his long horn case but the nickname of "Streamline," an evocative name to be sure, but not one that seems to have ever been used in any of extensive recording credits. Perhaps Streamline Ewing just sounded too silly, a bit like a vague threat that might have been made against one of the characters on Dallas. The trombonist began gigging in 1934 at the age of 17 in a hometown orchestra under the direction of Richard Harrison; more than 30 years later, he was still looking good enough to be included in a band called the Young Men of New Orleans. Why not, since he was only a bit more than halfway through his career at that point?
His has been a life of solid gigging in a series of great American jazz bands. The trombonist was still a young man when inducted into the Horace Henderson orchestra, was in and out of various
Earl Hines genius bands in the late '30s and early '40s, and insured himself a discography worth dropping on someone's head through his involvements with a Louis Armstrong big-band project in the same period. Ewing kept busy as the styles changed, demonstrating showmanship in the Lionel Hampton entourage and honing rhythm & blues chops in the late '40s as big-band jazz began getting nudged out of the picture by harder rhythms.
The trombonist gigged with Jay McShann, Cab Calloway, Cootie Williams, Earl Bostic, and many others. By the '50s, he had relocated to California, just in time to show up on many superior small label rhythm & blues sides. Not one to abandon jazz, Ewing was with Teddy Buckner in 1956, back with Horace Henderson in the early '60s, and matching licks with the great trumpeter Rex Stewart in a 1967 touring band. Long-range involvements with small combos began to take him back to the roots of his music, although he still got session musician calls of a more commercial nature. There was the previously mentioned Young Men of New Orleans, first formed in the late '60s, followed by Chris Kelly's Black & White New Orleans Jazz Band, a group that was organized in 1984 and was still working with Ewing in the lineup nearly two decades later. Kelly even uses the "Streamline" nickname in band publicity. ~ Eugene Chadbourne
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