The Ismay and George Duvivier Papers, Artifacts, and Audiovisual Materials

Ismay Duvivier was born August 27, 1903, to George Alexander Blakely and Beatrice Peebles Blakley in St. Croix (Danish West Indies). The Blakelys moved to New York City (NYC) in 1909. Ismay attended East Hampton High School and graduated from PS 119, James Russell Lowell School, in Manhattan in 1919. In the following year, Ismay married Leon Vincent Duvivier and gave birth to her only child, George.

In 1929, Ismay went into show business as a chorus girl and dancer. For three years Ismay worked on the Theater Owner’s Booking Association (T.O.B.A.) circuit performing throughout the East Coast of the United States. The famous Cotton Club, a NYC night club located first in Harlem and then the Theater District, was one of many venues where Ismay performed. She also danced with notable jazz performers and band leaders such as Cab Calloway, Blanche Calloway and Ethel Waters. Ismay left show business in 1932 and began working as a nurse at Lincoln Hospital in Brooklyn, New York where she worked for thirty years. Ismay earned a practical nurse certification and license from the state of New York in 1940. She died on February 6, 2004.

George Burnett Duvivier was born August 17, 1920 to Leon and Ismay Duvivier in New York City. Duvivier’s formal music education began in 1928 when he was enrolled at the Conservatory of Musical Art in New York City and began instruction in violin. While playing violin with the Central Manhattan Symphony, Duvivier started playing bass around 1934, and it remained his primary instrument for the rest of his career. In 1939 Duvivier accepted a music scholarship to New York University, where he studied bass performance, composition and arrangement, but he did not complete a degree before being inducted into military service in 1942.

George Duvivier was active as a bassist, arranger and composer in New York City from around 1935 until his death in 1985, and he briefly composed for and rehearsed military ensembles in Camp Shelby, Mississippi and Fort Warren, Wyoming during his Army service. Highlights of his musical career include playing, arranging and composing for Count Basie, Benny Carter, Bing Crosby, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, Lena Horne, Quincy Jones, Tito Puente and Doc Severinsen, as well as performing with the bands of the Today Show, Merv Griffin Show and the Dick Cavett Show. George Duvivier died of cancer on July 11, 1985.

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