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A swinging and supportive drummer who is also a personable singer,
Dottie Dodgion has managed to have a successful career as a female jazz musician, which must have been a difficult career choice in the 1950's! Early on she sang with
Charles Mingus and then began playing drums while in her early twenties. She married altoist Jerry Dodgion in 1952 and freelanced as a drummer in Las Vegas and New York during the next two decades. Although she did not become famous,
Dodgion did work with
Benny Goodman (1961), the
Billy Mitchell-Al Grey group,
Wild Bill Davison,
Al Cohn-
Zoot Sims,
Marian McPartland,
Ruby Braff and many other notable names in the bop, swing, dixieland and mainstream fields. After her marriage ended,
Dodgion moved to California in the mid-1970's where she has continued freelancing, emphasizing her singing a little more in later years.
Dottie Dodgion, who is a regular at traditional jazz festivals and occasionally appears at the Monterey Jazz Festival, has made many appearances on records as a sideperson and recorded as a leader for Arbors in the 1990's. ~ Scott Yanow