THE ORIGINAL TUXEDO JAZZBAND
Jeanette Kimball Born: December 18, 1906 in Pass Christian, Louisiana Died: March 29, 2001 in Charleston, South Carolina enjoyed a 70 year career playing piano in traditional jazz bands. Her skills as an accomplished reader combined with her ability to improvise made her an in-demand musician in New Orleans. She was born Jeanette Salvant in the small town of Pass Christian, into a family with French Creole connections. She began taking piano lessons at 7, and began to perform professionally as a teenager, initially in string bands, then in jazz settings. She joined a “society” dance band, Celestin’s Tuxedo Orchestra, in 1926, and toured the south with them, performing for white audiences at dances and carnivals. She married banjoist and guitarist Narvin Kimball, also a member of the band, in 1929, and stopped touring to raise her family in 1935. She used the name Kimball even after her marriage failed, and began to work again in New Orleans in the mid-1940s. She worked with b...