TEAGARDEN, NORMA (1911–1996). Norma Teagarden, jazz^qv pianist, was born in Vernon, Texas, on April 28, 1911. She was the daughter of Charles and Helen (Geinger) Teagarden. Norma studied piano with her mother and often performed with her brothers Jack, Charlie, and Clois.^qqv

She started her career in music in Oklahoma City around 1926. She moved to New Mexico in 1929 and played in various "territory" bands until 1935, when she moved back to Oklahoma City and started her own band. She moved to Long Beach, California, in 1942 and again led her own band. From 1944 to 1947 and from 1952 to 1955, she toured with Jack Teagarden's band. When she was not leading her own band or performing with her brothers, she worked with such jazz greats as Ben Pollack, Matty Matlock, Ada Leonard, Ted Vesley, Pete Daily, and Ray Bauduc. Norma Teagarden married John Friedlander in 1955 and settled in San Francisco in 1957. She remained active on the traditional jazz scene, playing alongside jazz artists such as Turk Murphy, Kass Malone, Dick Cary, Fred Greenleaf, Walter Page, Carl Kress, Pee Wee Russell, Edmond Hall, Jimmy McPartland, Leonard Feather, Kenny Davern, and Eddie Condon. In 1963 she joined her brothers Jack and Charlie and her mother at a recorded performance at the Monterey Jazz Festival.

Norma's piano can be heard on Eddie Condon's Town Hall Concerts, Volume 7 (1944) and Jack Teagarden's Meet Me Where They Play the Blues, Jazz Great, and Club Hangover Broadcasts (1954), 100 Years from Today (1963), Big T Jump (1995), Jack Teagarden 1944–1947, and (the second) Meet Me Where They Play the Blues (1999). Norma Teagarden Friedlander died of cancer in California on June 5, 1996.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Whitney Balliett, American Musicians: 56 Portraits in Jazz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). Chuck Huggins, "Norma Teagarden," Riverwalk Profiles Online (http://www.riverwalk.org/profiles/norma.htm), accessed February 3, 2003. Roger D. Kinkle, The Complete Encyclopedia of Popular Music and Jazz: 1900–1950 (4 vols., New Rochelle, New York: Arlington House, 1974).

Cheryl L. Simon