Dardanelle Breckenbridge

Dardanelle was a pianist, vibraphonist, and singer who was raised in a musical family. She studied music at Louisiana State University, holding a major, and worked as a house pianist at a local radio station. By the late 1930s she started to appear professionally on the national jazz scene.^[3] During the 1940s she led her own Dardanelle Trio, with various collaborators, initially with bassist Paul Edenfield and guitarist Tal Farlow.^[3] The trio recorded music and became a regular fixture at New York's Copacabana.^[3] During this time she was featured in the 1946 short theatrical musical Soundies Presents Happy Cat directed by William Forest Crouch and distributed by RCA Records.^[4] By the 1950s, Dardanelle had moved to Chicago and paused music in favour of raising a family.^[1]

Dardanelle had reappeared on the jazz scene by the 1970s. She relocated to the East Coast and formed a new trio including her son, the drummer Skip Hadley.^[3] Now she worked with the likes of Bucky Pizzarelli and George Duvivier, contributing on records, and appearing in a number of venues including the Carnegie Hall, until the 1990s.^[1]