International Sweethearts Of Rhythm

Jazz big band, formed in 1939 from a swing band started at the Piney Woods (Mississippi) Country Life School. Disbanded in the late 1940s, but Anna Mae Winburn continued to lead bands called the Sweethearts of Rhythm into the 1950s. The International Sweethearts of Rhythm was the first integrated all-women's band in the United States. During the 1940s the band featured some of the best female musicians of the day. They played swing and jazz on a national circuit that included the Apollo Theater in New York City, the Regal Theater in Chicago, and the Howard Theater in Washington, DC.