In these days of March, as we celebrate the 135^th birth anniversary of Paul Whiteman – the life story of the musician is posted in the column “Jazz Stars” and a selection of musical compositions that he performs – in the museum Library of sound recordings.

Paul Whiteman, whose full name is Paul Samuel Whiteman, was born on March 28, 1890, in Denver, Colorado. The musician left an indelible mark on jazz history as a bandleader, composer, and violinist. Paul's orchestra, founded in California in 1918, quickly became one of the most popular on the jazz scene of the 1920s. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, it was Whiteman who made jazz more accessible to the general public, and in the 1920s and 1930s turned jazz into a popular musical genre.

Whiteman greatly simplified jazz rhythms, making the music easier for listeners to understand, an approach for which the musician was both praised and criticized at the same time.
Paul Whiteman began his career as a classical violinist, but his interest in popular music brought him to jazz. During World War I, the musician led a large naval orchestra, and after the war he formed his first dance orchestra. In 1920, Whiteman moved to New York City, where his orchestra began recording for the “Victor Talking Machine Company”. The orchestra's first recordings, such as “Japanese Sandman” and “Whispering,” sold out in large quantities, and Paul Whiteman's name became widely recognized. He was known for hiring the best musicians and orchestrators, including Ferde Grofé, who was responsible for the famous sound of Whiteman's orchestra.

One of the most significant moments in Paul's career was the premiere of George Gershwin's “Rhapsody in the Blue” in 1924, with Whiteman as bandleader and Gershwin as soloist. It was “Rhapsody” that became the orchestra's brand identity and a demonstration of its supreme skill. For the unsophisticated public, the orchestra itself epitomized jazz. Its sound, usually a combination of symphonic and popular music with jazz, contributed to the general public's perception of jazz. Whiteman invited the best musicians he could find and paid them more than other orchestras. A truly strong cast emerged in 1927, when the orchestra was joined by Bix Beiderbecke and Frankie Trumbauer; vocalists Bing Crosby, Mildred Bailey, Johnny Mercer; and, somewhat later, fiddler Joe Venuti and guitar player Eddie Lang. Paul Whiteman collected African-American musical talents  and originally planned to hire white and black musicians, but eventually his managers convinced him that because of racial tensions and segregation in America at the time, such a policy would have been “professional suicide”. Still, Paul often disregarded the recommendations, hiring black musicians and orchestrators, such as Fletcher Henderson, for recordings and tours.

The orchestra's starry cast set the tone for the coming big band era, but by the beginning of the swing era, Whiteman's music (whose orchestra hardly ever swung) had come to be considered old-fashioned, and in the early 1940s, Whiteman virtually retired from the business, making only occasional guest appearances. He concentrated on new talents scouting and served as channel director of the “ABC Radio Network”.

Paul Whiteman spent the last years of his life in Pennsylvania. He died on December 29, 1967.

The legacy of musician is amazing. He made about three thousand orchestrations, wrote music for six Broadway shows and recorded a lot. His contribution to the development of jazz is immense.