VALIDA SNOW
(June 2, 1904 – May 30, 1956)
“Little Louis” and “Queen of the Trumpet
Lady Louis Armstrong, Queen of Jazz, trumpeter, songwriter, Vocalist, band leader the unmentioned musician, and performer Valaida Snow. She was named “Little Louis” after Louis Armstrong himself the most famous artist of the 1930s era. She was loved and hated by her peers for being a complete threat as a full-rounded artist who was completely driven by her passion to be the best and had the power behind her. She was dismissed for years in the music genre but if you are an avid collector or a historian you would have known her and her many talents and attributes to the music industry and world as an accomplished artist and performer. She was awarded the GOLD TRUMPET AWARD by Queen Wilhelmina for her outstanding talents.
Valida was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Raised on the road in a show-business family, she was home tutored and learned to play a major slew of musical instruments which were the harp, accordion, clarinet, trumpet, cello, bass, banjo, violin, mandolin, and saxophone at professional levels by the time she was 15.
Valida was an internationally famed artist. She played concerts throughout the USA, Europe, and China. During the years of 1926 to 1929, she toured with Jack Carter’s Serenaders in Shanghai, Singapore, Calcutta, and Jakarta.. As many people do through depression she ended up being on narcotics and alcohol due to her relationships and her constant battle with other of her peers in the black music industry. she also recorded her hit song “High Hat, Trumpet, and Rhythm”. She performed in the Ethel Waters show Rhapsody In Black, in New York. In the mid-1930s she made films with her husband, Ananias Berry, of the Berry Brothers dancing troupe. After playing at New York’s Apollo Theater, she revisited Europe and the Far East for more shows and films.
Valida’s love which never died and which kept her afloat was her deep passion and marriage to her music.. While touring through Denmark in 1941, she was arrested by the Nazis and probably kept at Vestre Fængsel, a Danish prison in Copenhagen that was run by the Nazis, before being released on a prisoner exchange in May 1942. TO ME IT DOES NOT WHICH PLACE SHE WAS HELD. VALIDA WAS TORTURED IN EVERY NATURE FOR HER TO COME BACK TO THE UNITED STATES WITH A MERE 100LBS, BUT HER PASSION LOVE, AND DRIVE FOR LIFE KEPT HER TO CONTINUE.
After returning back to the United States of America she embarked on a comeback tour at the age of 40. She was able to be successful. 1n the year of 1956 she suffered a brain hemorrhage on May 30, 1956, in New York City, backstage after a performance at the Palace Theatre