Tommy Benford drum set and papers

Thomas Phoenix (Tommy) Benford (b. April 19, 1905, d. March 24, 1994) a prolific jazz drummer from the 1920s through the 1980s, was born in Charleston, West Virginia in 1905. With his brother, the noted tuba player Bill Benford, Benford received his musical education at the notorious Jenkins' Orphanage in Charleston, South Carolina, where trumpeter Jabbo Smith also learned his craft. His musical career and penchant for traveling abroad began when the Jenkins' Orphanage band toured England in 1914. The tour was curtailed, however, because of the outbreak of war on the continent. Benford escaped from the orphanage twice with his brother, the second time successfully. It was then, circa 1920, that Benford joined a minstrel show in Virginia, The Green River Minstrels. Soon thereafter, Benford traveled with a patent medicine man and with various entertainment shows, circuses, and carnivals. Several years later he moved to New York. A prolific sideman, Benford began playing in orchestras including the Marie Lucas Orchestra, which went on to Washington, D.C. in the early twenties.

Among the many artists, musicians, and composers Benford worked with were Charlie Skeete; Jelly Roll Morton, contributing to Kansas City Stomp and Shreveport, both 1928; Bill Benford (ca. 1928); Edgar Hayes; Sy Devereaux (1932); Fats Waller; Coleman Hawkins (1937); Benny Carter (1937); Eddie Brunner; Bill Coleman; Eddie South (1938); Joe Turner; George Johnson, St. Tropez, France (1938); and Willie Lewis (1938,1941). After his return to the United States Benford toured various military posts (1941-1943), and worked with Noble Sissle (1943), Snub Mosely (1946-1948), Bob Wilbur (1948-49), Jimmy Archey (1950-1952). During the 1950s Benford was a freelance musician, toured Europe again in 1960-61 with the Jazz Train Revue by Eddie Barefield, and worked extensively with Clyde Berhnardt's Harlem Blues and Jazz Band (1973-9, 1981), and with Bob Greenes World of Jelly Roll Morton (1973-74, 1982).

Benford's career brought him to Europe in the 1930s during a period when jazz and its musicians were very well received overseas. He opened at Chez Florence in Paris, recorded with Coleman Hawkins, Django Reinhardt, and Stephane Grappelli, played at the avant-garde club Boeuf Sur La Toit, and played in George Johnson's Orchestra in St. Tropez on the French Riviera (1938). Benford was with Willie Lewis when war broke out in Europe in 1939. He made his way to Switzerland, then Spain and Portugal, playing all the way. He came back to the U.S. on the Exeter with his son, Tommy Jr., in October 1941 and moved in with his sister in New York. During his time in Europe, Benford married his first wife, Sophia Mezzaro, a dancer, singer, and pianist from Vienna. She died in Paris giving birth to his oldest son, Tommy Jr. in 1939. Benford married his second wife, Dorothy, in 1952 and had three children with her.

Much of Benford's life was spent "traveling"—geographically, or between bands and orchestras. One thing is certain, according to Benford, who once said, "I already knew it didn't matter where I was. When I'm behind my drums, I'm home."