The overlap of the big band era and World War II made for a moment where all-women bands could thrive. Enter trumpeter/vocalist Ernestine “Tiny” Davis, drummer/pianist Ruby Lucas, and the International Sweethearts of Rhythm.
The Sweethearts band was made up entirely of women of all different ethnic and racial backgrounds, coming together under the common language of jazz.
According to LGBTQ+ archival site Queer Music Heritage, the band at large came together as youth through the Piney Woods School, a school for Black orphans in Mississippi. The band was originally created to help raise funds for the school, and after gaining some notoriety, cut ties with the school to chase loftier musical success. They found it in tours, recording offers, and even a USO show across Europe.
In the band and far beyond, Davis and Lucas would come to be one another’s actual sweethearts. Around the time she joined the band, Davis left her husband and fell for Lucas (though which event happened first is a bit murky).
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Their brazen queer relationship reportedly got the pair kicked from Davis’ Kansas City residence. In the 1988 documentary Tiny and Ruby: Hell Divin’ Women, Davis simply states, “We got ran out of town.”
As men returned from the war, got back to playing, and started snatching up bookings, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm took their final bow in 1949. Though musical work for women became harder and harder to come by, the couple moved on to a new women-led band, Tiny Davis and the Hell Divers.
To ensure themselves a place to play and build community, Davis and Lucas worked towards opening a club together in their new home of Chicago. They eventually succeeded, creating the LGBTQ+ club and jazz bar Tiny and Ruby’s Gay Spot.
Though the club was short-lived, these two lovebirds continued to play their tunes together for decades and cemented their legacy in LGBTQ+ musical history.
Get into the swing of things with the International Sweethearts of Rhythm’s rendition of “How ‘Bout That Jive”, starring Tiny Davis:
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Thanks for this bit of queer history, Queerty!