Herman Grimes

Trumpet.

A student at Birmingham Industrial High School, where he studied with Alabama Music Hall of Fame inductee John T. “Fess” Whatley (who also taught Sun Ra), Grimes was playing with the Barnum and Bailey Circus when he was 9-years-old and leading Roger’s Sunshine Minstrels in 1923, also in Alabama. During the Depression Grimes worked with Kansas City band leader Tommy Douglas. In 1940, club owner Russell “Noodles” Smith invited Grimes to Seattle, where he played at the Congo Room, Coe’s Tavern and the Green Dot with Palmer Johnson and led his own trio at the Dutchman Tavern. Grimes left Seattle during WWII to serve in the Navy and later subbed for Shorty Rogers in the Duke Ellington Orchestra, recording “Do Nothin’ Til You Hear From Me” with Duke in 1947. Grimes gave up music and joined the merchant marine in the 1950s and according to Royal, died in that decade.

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