caption death_date death_place birth_place name background birth_date instrument genre image article_title birth_name
shavers by william p. gottlieb . , national studios , may 1947 . photography 8 july 1971 new york city , new york , united states new york city , new york , united states charlie shavers non_vocal_instrumentalist 3 august 1920 trumpet jazz charlie gottlieb 07761 -rrb- . jpg shavers , national studio , may 1947 -lrb- charlie shavers
 charles james shavers
charlie shavers

charles james shavers -lrb- august 3 , 1920 -- july 8 , 1971 -rrb- , known as charlie shavers , was an american swing era jazz trumpet player who played at one time or another with dizzy gillespie , roy eldridge , johnny dodds , jimmie noone , sidney bechet , midge williams and billie holiday .
he was also an arranger and composer , and one of his compositions , `` undecided '' , is a jazz standard .
charlie shavers ' father -lrb- a distant relative of fats navarro -rrb- was from the prominent shavers family of key west , florida , and charlie was a cousin of heavyweight boxer earnie shavers .
born in new york city , he originally took up the piano and banjo before switching to trumpet .
in the mid-thirties , he performed with tiny bradshaw and lucky millinder .
in 1936 he joined john kirby 's sextet as trumpet soloist and arranger -lrb- he was only 16 but gave his birthdate as 1917 in order to avoid child labor laws - many biographies still list this date -rrb- .
his arrangements and solos with this band contributed greatly towards making it one of the most commercially successful and widely imitated bands of its day .
in 1937 he was performing 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 1953 .
during this time he continued to play sessions at cbs , played 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 , and toured europe with norman granz 's popular jazz at the philharmonic series , where he was always a crowd favorite .
he went on to form his own band with terry gibbs and louie bellson .
charlie shavers died from throat cancer in new york in 1971 at the age of 50 .
his friend louis armstrong died while shavers was on his deathbed , and his last request was that his trumpet mouthpiece be buried with armstrong in his coffin .
