Rex William Stewart Jr. (February 22, 1907 – September 7, 1967) was an American jazz cornetist who played in the Duke Ellington orchestra.

Career

As a young man, he studied piano and violin. Later in his life, he played the cornet most often. Stewart left high school to join the Ragtime Clowns, a group led by Ollie Blackwell. He later played with the Musical Spillers, led by Willie Lewis, in the early 1920s. He also performed with Elmer Snowden, Horace Henderson, Fletcher Henderson, Fess Williams, and McKinney's Cotton Pickers. In 1933, he led a big band at the Empire Ballroom in New York City. From 1934 to 1944, he worked with the Duke Ellington band. Stewart helped write two songs, "Boy Meets Horn" and "Morning Glory," and helped with recording sessions by members of the Ellington band. He left Ellington to lead small swing bands, which allowed him to play solos. He traveled to Europe and Australia with Jazz at the Philharmonic from 1947 to 1951.

In the early 1950s, he worked in radio and television. He also wrote about jazz for the Los Angeles Times and magazines such as Playboy and DownBeat. The book Jazz Masters of the Thirties includes some of his writing. After buying a 100-year-old farmhouse, he lived in upstate New York. He hosted a jazz radio program in Troy, New York, and briefly owned a small restaurant near a drag racing track in Vermont. While living in France, he attended the Le Cordon Bleu cooking school and worked hard to become a skilled cook. He moved to Los Angeles, California, to be close to his children. His son, Paul Albert Hardy, lived in New York City. In Los Angeles, he reunited with musicians from the Ellington band and played in clubs. He worked as a studio musician for The Steve Allen Show and co-hosted two radio programs with George Cole: Dixieland Doings and Things Ain't What They Used to Be.

His autobiography, Boy Meets Horn, was published in 1991. He died in Los Angeles from a brain hemorrhage.

Film and television

He had a brief role in the movie Rendezvous in July (1949), which was directed by Jacques Becker. He also appeared in the film Hellzapoppin' (1941) and in the television broadcast The Sound of Jazz (1957).

Discography

• Big Jazz with Jack Teagarden, released by Atlantic in 1953
• Rex Stewart Plays Duke Ellington with Illinois Jacquet, released by Grand Award in 1955
• The Big Challenge with Cootie Williams, released by Jazztone in 1957
• Porgy & Bess Revisited with Cootie Williams, released by Warner Bros. in 1959
• Chatter Jazz with Dickie Wells, released by RCA Victor in 1959
• Henderson Homecoming, released by United Artists in 1959
• Rendezvous with Rex, released by Felsted in 1959
• The Happy Jazz of Rex Stewart, released by Swingville in 1960
• Rex Stewart and the Ellingtonians, released by Riverside in 1960
• Redhead, released by Design Records in 1960
• The Rex Stewart Memorial Album, released by Prestige in 1969
• The Irrepressible Rex Stewart with John Dengler, released by Jazzology in 1980
• Rex Stewart with the Alex Welsh Band, released by Jazzology in 2004