Red Saunders

CTL-E-6107 · Person · musician · 1912–1981

PROVISIONAL evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07327 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6107.

Red Saunders, born Theodore Dudley Saunders on March 2, 1912 in Memphis, Tennessee, was an American jazz drummer and bandleader who also played vibraphone and timpani. After his mother's death he moved to Chicago with his sister, became a professional musician in 1928, and returned to Chicago in 1934 to join Tiny Parham's band at the Savoy Ballroom. In 1937 he joined the house band at the Club DeLisa, initially led by pianist Albert Ammons, and soon took over as bandleader himself. He remained in control of the Club DeLisa house band, playing four to six shows nightly, until the club closed in 1958, apart from a hiatus from 1945 to 1947. His sidemen included singer Joe Williams, and his arrangers included Johnny Pate and Sun Ra. He recorded as a bandleader from 1945, scored an R&B chart success in 1952 with Hambone on the OKeh label, played with Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Woody Herman, and led a band at Chicago's Regal Theater into the 1960s. He died in Chicago on March 5, 1981, aged 69.

The record

• Also known as: Theodore Dudley Saunders, Theodore Saunders

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 4 — 747 Program, Wave 11; fourth Scan Tail packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): no Red Saunders entity in the live graph at 3,763 entities (exact / normalized / alias match + token containment; CLEAR). ID CTL-E-6107 free. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Tier 4 — Scan Tail Wave 3 packet ordered reserve, position 22 of 35 (corpus-gap-candidates-2026-10-15.json ranked clean survivor #1782). The scan supplied the NAME STRING ONLY; no fact in this record is sourced to it (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: PASS — Black Chicago first: a Chicago record — Saunders's career was built in Chicago clubs (Savoy Ballroom, Club DeLisa, Regal Theater) after a Memphis birth. Vital status: Deceased. Theodore Dudley Saunders died March 5, 1981 in Chicago, aged 69 (Wikipedia citing Eagle & LeBlanc 2013; corroborated by Discogs artist profile; both accessed 2026-10-16). STATISTICS — STATISTICS (sourced, dated): Wikipedia / Eagle & LeBlanc (accessed 2026-10-16): Club DeLisa house band tenure 1937–1958 with a 1945–1947 hiatus, playing four to six shows nightly. CONFLICT SHOWN, NOT BLENDED: Discogs dates his own bands 1937–1963, while Wikipedia has him leading a Regal Theater band into the 1960s after DeLisa closed in 1958 — the DeLisa end date (1958) and the later Chicago bandleading are both retained without merging the two spans. TIER: Provisional under CTL-GOV-006 — the authoritative leg rests on AllMusic's summary page; the full AllMusic biography text was not retrievable in this pass, and no second Chicago/jazz reference leg was opened — the floor is short one fully-read authoritative source. MEDIA: photo HELD (Jack Delano's April 1942 photograph of 'Red' Saunders and his band at the Club DeLisa, Chicago (Farm Security Administration / Library of Congress series, including the Saunders family photographs) — specific image to be verified in a later PHOTO-001 pass; no license claimed. — named candidate only; file-level rights verification per CTL-PHOTO-001 still required; no license claimed); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-6107-red-saunders.svg); video HELD (no matching-entity CTL Short or verified-rights archival video staged); audio HELD (no rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged); map N/A (person record). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Persons carry no map in the packet standard.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created chart (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced statistics and timeline fact) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short or verified-rights archival video staged.) | audio = HELD (No rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged.)

Relationships

• Club DeLisa — performed at
  Saunders led the Club DeLisa house band from 1937 to 1958, as stated in his record

Sources

• Wikipedia, "Red Saunders (musician)" (accessed 2026-10-16), citing Eagle & LeBlanc, Blues: A Regional Experience (2013) for vital dates — Theodore Dudley 'Red' Saunders, March 2, 1912 – March 5, 1981; Club DeLisa house band from 1937, bandleader until the club closed in 1958; sidemen and arrangers including Johnny Pate and Sun Ra; Hambone (1952, OKeh); Regal Theater band into the 1960s — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Saunders_(musician) (build store)
• AllMusic, "Red Saunders" artist page (accessed 2026-10-16) — also known as Theodore Saunders; active 1930s–1950s per AllMusic's summary; Eugene Chadbourne biography cited as the AllMusic source for the Saunders life — https://www.allmusic.com/artist/red-saunders-mn0000883650 (primary source · build store)
• Discogs, "Red Saunders" artist profile (accessed 2026-10-16) — born March 2, 1912 in Memphis; died March 5, 1981 in Chicago; played with Stomp King, Tiny Parham, and his own bands (1937–1963), Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Woody Herman and others — https://www.discogs.com/artist/571402-Red-Saunders (build store)

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Record CTL-E-6107 · Combined Graph record U-07327 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources · 1 mapped relationship.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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