Meet Captain Walter Dyett: A Concert Performance

Walter Henri Dyett, known as “Captain Dyett”, was a music educator, and instrumental figure in the development of jazz and black music in Chicago. As the band instructor of Bronzeville’s DuSable High School, Dyett built a powerhouse music program that produced iconic singers such as Nat King Cole, Dinah Washington, Ella Jenkins, and Johnny Hartman. His program also produced many great instrumentalists including Richard Davis, Dorothy Donegan, Muhal Richard Abrams, Julian Priester, Joseph Jarman, and the Chicago tenor saxophonists Gene Ammons, Von Freeman, Johnny Griffin, Eddie Harris, Clifford.