Demas Dean

Who was Demas Dean?

Demas Dean was an American jazz trumpeter.

Dean began on the instrument at age ten; he later picked up violin but concentrated on trumpet professionally. While in high school he played in Mazzeo's Brass Band, and worked with Beatrice Van Houten while still in his teens. He attended Howard University in 1922-23, and played with Elmer Snowden, Doc Perry, Russell Wooding, and Lucille Hegamin in the first half of the 1920s. He played with Billy Butler, Ford Dabney, and Leon Abbey later that decade; with Abbey, he toured South America. In 1928 he recorded with Bessie Smith, and the following year worked with Noble Sissle in the Blackbirds revue in Europe.

Early in the 1930s he worked with bandleaders Joe Jordan and Pike Davis, but returned to play with Sissle from 1934 to 1944. After 1944 Dean quit music and took a job at a post office in Los Angeles, working there until his retirement in 1965.