Joe Garland

American jazz saxophonist, composer, and arranger, best known for writing "In The Mood" (Aug. 15, 1903, Norfolk, Virginia - April 21, 1977, Teaneck, New Jersey). Garland studied music at Shaw University and the Aeolian Conservatory. He started by playing classical music but joined a jazz band, Graham Jackson's Seminole Syncopators, in 1924, where he first recorded. He had a long run of associations as a sideman on saxophone and clarinet, with Elmer Snowden (1925), Joe Steele (2), Henri Saparo, Leon Abbey (including a tour of South America), Charlie Skeete and Jelly Roll Morton in the 1920s. The 1930s saw him playing with Bobby Neal (1931) and the [a307167]; he was both a performer and an arranger for the Blue Rhythm Band from 1932 to 1936, when Lucky Millinder replaced him. Following this he played with [a307187] (1937), Don Redman (1938), and Louis Armstrong (1939-42). In the 1940s he played with Claude Hopkins and others, and then returned to Armstrong's band from 1945-47. Following this he played with Herbie Fields, Hopkins again, and [a257353] (1948). In the 1950s, he went into semi-retirement.