Caughey Roberts

{{short description|American jazz musician (1912–1990)}}

Caughey Roberts (August 25, 1912 – December 15, 1990) was an American jazz alto sax player, best known for his time in the Count Basie Orchestra in the 1930s.

He was born in Boley, Oklahoma,Fourteen Census of the United States, 1920 https://archive.org/details/14thcensusofpopu1478unit later moving to Los Angeles. He played both baritone and alto sax, and clarinet. During the early-1930s, he was a music band teacher at Jefferson High School in Los Angeles.Jazz High by Kirk Silsbee - LA CityBeat Magazine, September 13–19, 2007 [http://www.mydigitalpublication.com/display_article.php?id=15766] He later joined Buck Clayton’s 14-piece jazz ensemble (known as the Harlem Gentlemen).Yanow, Scott. [2000] (2000). Swing: Third Ear – The Essential Listening Companion. Backbeat Books publishing [https://www.amazon.com/Swing-Third-Essential-Listening-Companion/dp/0879306009] They traveled by cruise liner to Shanghai, China where they performed an extended engagement at the elegant Canidrome Ballroom. He would eventually leave Shanghai before the 1937 Second Sino-Japanese War.Jones. Andrew F. [2001] (2001). Yellow Music: Media Culture and Colonial Modernity in the Chinese Jazz Age. Duke University Press [https://www.dukeupress.edu/Yellow-Music/index-viewby=title.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141225090953/https://www.dukeupress.edu/Yellow-Music/index-viewby=title.html |date=2014-12-25 }}[https://books.google.com/books?id=70YIAQAAMAAJ] Buck Clayton, Nancy M. Elliott, Buck Clayton’s Jazz World. A&C Black, 1995 After returning from Shanghai, he replaced Buster Smith in the Count Basie Orchestra, leaving in 1942 when he was replaced by Earle Warren. He also played in Roy Milton's band. Caughey was drafted into the U.S. Army on August 13, 1942. He trained at Fort Huachuca for a week and a half. He requested to go with the band assigned at Fort Huachuca, but ended up with another band at Papago Park (Prisoner-of-War Camp) sixteen miles out of Phoenix, Arizona. He was there close to four years playing in the dance band and a small combo. He was honorably discharge from the U.S. Army with the rank of Sergeant, February 1946.National Archives and Records Administration, U.S. World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946 [https://aad.archives.gov/aad/series-description.jsp?s=3360&cat=WR26&bc=,sl] and Peter Vacher, "Swingin' on Central Avenue, African American Jazz in Los Angeles, Published by Rowman & Littlefield, 2015, pages 141-142 In later years he played in the traditional jazz band at Disneyland's New Orleans Square with Teddy Buckner and others.[https://books.google.com/books?id=ctNSi1g34CgC&dq=%22Caughey+Roberts%22&pg=PA226 Clora Bryant, Central Avenue Sounds: Jazz in Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1999]

He died in Los Angeles in 1990 at the age of 78.[http://www.donaldclarkemusicbox.com/encyclopedia/detail.php?s=539 Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music: Count Basie]