Jimmie Maddin has been a centerpiece of Southern California Jazz & Blues Culture for the past several decades and continues his legacy horn blowing to the present day.
From a remote neighborhood of the country fifty years ago in a town called Sheboygan, Wisconsin to the rash and brash drive of his still very able vocals and saxo(phone)calls on the current nocturnal circuit of Los Angeles, Jimmy Maddin is still out there exploiting and expounding on the musical attributes of his first and really true loves - blues and jazz.   It's a passion he has never lost since he first began tuning in on and emulating such giants of the era as Louis Jordan and Louis Armstrong. Yes, his innate talents which initially carried him to Los Angeles to launch his formal educational years at L.A. City College and the L.A. Conservatory of Music. With the master tutoring of prominent teacher Lloyd Reese (circa 1948) gave Maddin the right tools and the right bounce to spring him ahead at his young age.

Such neighborhood bars along Central Avenue in 1948, as Downbeat and the Last Word, became something of a magnet for Maddin. It propelled him to be further influenced and to record his first song, Boogie Boo, the following year for Tampa Records. It was done in collaboration with more blues and jazz legends Benny Carter, Red Calendar plus top lyricist and mentor Paul Vandervoort.

Maddin continued playing independent clubs on into the early 1950's, along with guesting with such top deejays as Art Laboe and the late Carl Bailey (KWKW). One of his most memorable and proudest moments during that time was jammin' with a few more giants of the period - Johnny Hodges, Dizzy Gillespie, and Duke Ellington - at a place called the Oasis on 41st & Western.

When he began to run out of places in which to perform, he mustered up enough strength and wisdom from his self-taught business acumen to buy his own night club, the Sanbah Room.  It was the kind of base which carried him along practically to the end of the decade in launching his own radio show from the spot on the Mighty 690 plus sharing the spotlight there with other such notables in R & B and Rock 'n' Roll as Ray Peterson and the 5th Dimension. His club was even the site for a topical motion picture of the day, H.

Popularity and success began to take place on all fronts, including major guest shots and ongoing appearances on local and national TV programs.  The Buddy Bregman Show, Larry Finley Show and The Ray Bolger Show.  He came close to snaring the starring role in Sam Katzman's Rock Around The Clock during the mid-1950's but, for an engagement in Palm Springs, he was not available for the screen test.

Maddin never buckled to adversity, and, during the same time period, dabbled in novelty songs with top arranger/composer Ernie Freeman he wrote "I Love The Dodgers", "Big Frank", and "I Love The (Milwaukee) Braves". He took on some politicking by being instrumental in the amalgamation of the all-black Musicians Local 767 with Local 47. He played and sang by night, convinced and campaigned by day.                                                                                             Jimmie with long time friend Benny Carter


                                                                                                  
Opportunistic like he always was in those days, Maddin saw the chance to move down Sunset right into the heart of Hollywood. He bought and developed the Sundown while divesting his interests in the Sanbah Room in 1958 and began an era of furthering his own notoriety while allowing the new acquisition to host such artists and musicians as the Terry Big Band, Jerry Lee Lewis, John Coletrane, Gerry Mulligan, Miles Davis, Steve Allen, among many others.

The year 1960 saw the Sundown change hands from Maddin to a group headed by Bob Geffel.  Maddin stayed for a while, but when the name was also changed to the Summit, it was another signal for the saxophonist / singer / promoter to move on. He saw a multitude of prospects in Glendale, so he moved himself and his activities there, at one time owning and operating three different cabarets, alternating and singing in all of them.