Charles James Shavers (August 3, 1917 – July 8, 1971) was was one of the great American trumpeters to emerge during the swing era, a virtuoso with an open-minded and extroverted style along with a strong sense of humour. He played with Dizzy Gillespie, Nat King Cole, Roy Eldridge, Johnny Dodds, Jimmie Noone, Sidney Bechet, Midge Williams, Tommy Dorsey, and Billie Holiday. He was also an arranger and composer, and one of his compositions, "Undecided", is a jazz standard.
Shavers's father, a distant relative of Fats Navarro, was from the Shavers family of Key West, Florida. Charlie Shavers was a cousin of heavyweight boxer Earnie Shavers. Born in New York City, he took up piano and banjo before switching to trumpet. In the mid-1930s, he performed with Tiny Bradshaw and Lucky Millinder. In 1935, he played in the trumpet section with Dizzy Gillespie and Carl (Bama) Warwick in Frankie Fairfax's Campus Club Orchestra. In 1936, he joined John Kirby's Sextet as trumpet soloist and arranger. He was only 16, but gave his birth date as 1917 to avoid child labour laws; many biographies still list this date.
Shavers's arrangements and solos helped make the band one of the most commercially successful and imitated of its day. In 1937, he performed with Midge Williams and her Jazz Jesters. In 1944, he began playing sessions in Raymond Scott's CBS staff orchestra. In 1945, he left John Kirby's band to join Tommy Dorsey's Orchestra, with whom he toured and recorded, off and on, until Dorsey's passing in 1956. In 1949, he sang and played the hit "The Hucklebuck" with the Dorsey Orchestra. He can be seen as a member of Dorsey's Orchestra on numerous "Stage Show" telecasts for CBS, including early Elvis Presley appearances.
During this time he also continued to play at CBS; he also appeared with the Metronome All-Stars, and made a number of recordings as trumpet soloist with Billie Holiday. From 1953 to 1954, he worked with Benny Goodman. He formed his own band with Terry Gibbs and Louie Bellson.
But Shavers will undoubtedly always be remembered for his participation in the concert tours organized by producer Norman Granz under the name Jazz at the Philharmonic. In that context, Shavers shone above all in the epic musical battles he fought, trumpet in hand, with the great Roy Eldridge. Many of them, fortunately, were preserved on tape for posterity, something that every jazz fan should always thank Granz, whose ears were always open to everything that exuded quality and could be marketed.
In the sixties he continued to prove one of the most durable musicians in the business. And, though his flexibility enabled him to play all kinds of dates, such as the dixieland-oriented Metropole and the more subdued Embers in New York, Shavers continued to retain his own unmistakable sound and conception – truly a "classic" musician who transcended the many changes in jazz styles.
Shavers died from throat cancer in New York in 1971 at the age of 53, but by then he had grown tired of the music scene and was living practically retired. His friend Louis Armstrong died while Shavers was on his deathbed, and his last request was that his trumpet mouthpiece be buried with Armstrong.
(Edited from Wikipedia & Liner notes)