Erskine Tate

CTL-E-6259 · Person · musician · 1895–1978; Vendome residency 1919–1928

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07450 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6259.

Erskine Tate was an American jazz violinist and bandleader born January 14, 1895, in Memphis, Tennessee. He moved to Chicago in 1912 and became an early figure on the Chicago jazz scene. At the Vendome Theater, a movie house at 31st and State Street, his Vendome Theater Symphony Orchestra accompanied silent films and played classical and light repertoire alongside jazz; the University of Chicago Library's exhibition history records his thirteen-piece Vendome Theater Orchestra as the theater's resident band from 1919 to 1928, with Louis Armstrong a member in 1926. Musicians who passed through Tate's orchestra included Freddie Keppard, Buster Bailey, Jimmy Bertrand, Ed Atkins, Teddy Weatherford, Fats Waller, and Teddy Wilson. Documented overtures at the Vendome included works associated with Franz von Suppé and Gioacchino Rossini, alongside music by Wagner and Beethoven. In the mid-1930s Tate retired from active performance and became a music teacher, remaining a Chicago music educator in later decades. He died December 17, 1978, in Chicago, aged 83.

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 7 — 747 Program, FINAL Wave 13; seventh Scan Tail packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): Gate A CLEAR (hand-checked 2026-10-16): no Erskine Tate entity, alias, or variant in the live graph (3,910 entities); the Vendome Theater exists as CTL-E-0863 (Address/site). ID CTL-E-6259 free at staging. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger — Tier 4 corpus scan tail, corpus-gap-candidates-2026-10-15.json ranked #2803. The scan supplied the name string only; every fact is sourced under CTL-GOV-004. SCOPE GATE: Black Chicago bandleader at a South State Street theater — core Black Chicago music history (BCI-001 / MUSIC-001), in the city CTL owns first. Vital status: DECEASED — died December 17, 1978, Chicago, Illinois, aged 83 (Wikipedia, accessed 2026-10-16). STATISTICS — Dates and figures (accessed 2026-10-16): born January 14, 1895, Memphis; moved to Chicago in 1912; Vendome residency 1919–1928 as a thirteen-piece orchestra (University of Chicago Library); Louis Armstrong a member in 1926. No conflicting figures were found in the opened sources. MEDIA: photo HELD (named candidate only; no license claimed — PHOTO-001 verification deferred); chart staged in media_specs; video HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map (shorts-link-map-2026-10-15.json, 233 rows, checked by name and variants, 2026-10-16); no near-miss title found.); audio HELD (HELD: No CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio exists at staging.); map N/A (person/work/event 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 (Person records carry no map slot; maps attach to places and institutions.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (Created for this packet (CTL graphic, CTL-PHOTO-001 lane) from the record's sourced facts.) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map (shorts-link-map-2026-10-15.json, 233 rows, checked by nam) | audio = HELD (No rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged; audio slot held pending a CTL-PHOTO-001-consistent rights basi)

Relationships

• Louis Armstrong — collaborated with
  Louis Armstrong was a member of Erskine Tate's Vendome Theater Orchestra, in 1926 per the University of Chicago Library exhibition history and the opened Tate record.

Sources

• Wikipedia, Erskine Tate (accessed 2026-10-16) — born January 14, 1895, Memphis, died December 17, 1978, Chicago, aged 83; jazz violinist and bandleader; moved to Chicago in 1912; Vendome Orchestra at the Vendome Theater, 31st and State Street, accompanying silent films; members included Louis Armstrong, Freddie Keppard, Buster Bailey, Jimmy Bertrand, Ed Atkins, Teddy Weatherford, Fats Waller and Teddy Wilson; classical repertoire including Wagner and Beethoven; retired from active performance in the mid-1930s to teach — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erskine_Tate (build store)
• University of Chicago Library, From Dreamland to Showcase: Jazz in Chicago, 1912 to 1996 (exhibition text) (accessed 2026-10-16) — the Vendome Theater at 3145 South State Street, 1909 until demolition in 1949, was an important vaudeville house; from 1919 to 1928 Erskine Tate's thirteen-piece Vendome Theater Orchestra, a symphonic jazz orchestra, was the resident band; Louis Armstrong was a member of Tate's group in 1926; Fats Waller was the house organist — https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/media/documents/exfds-text.pdf (primary source · build store)

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Record CTL-E-6259 · Combined Graph record U-07450 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 2 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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