Elmer Chester Snowden (October 9, 1900 – May 14, 1973) was an American banjo player of the jazz age. He also played guitar and, in the early stages of his career, all the reed instruments. He contributed greatly to jazz in its early days as both a player and a bandleader, and launched the careers of many top musicians. Biography Elmer Snowden was born in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, to Gertude Snowden, and had a brother, James. His mother worked as a laundress, but by the time of the 1917 World War I draft registration, a month before his 17th birthday, he was already listing his occupation as "musician," while living with his mother, and the 1920 Federal Census lists him still living at home, employed as a "musician in a dance hall." Snowden was the original leader of the Washingtonians, a group he brought to New York City from the capital in 1923. Unable to gain a booking, Snowden sent for Duke Ellington, who was with the group when it recorded three test sides for Victor that were never issued. Ellington eventually took over leadership of the band, which contained the nucleus of what later became his orchestra. Snowden was also a renowned band leader – Count Basie, Jimmie Lunceford, Bubber Miley, "Tricky Sam" Nanton, Frankie Newton, Benny Carter, Rex Stewart, Roy Eldridge and Chick Webb are among the musicians who worked in his bands. Very active in the 1920s as an agent and musician, Snowden at one time had five bands playing under his name in New York, one of which was led by pianist Cliff Jackson. Most of his bands were not recorded, but a Snowden band that included Eldridge, Al Sears, Dicky Wells and Sid Catlett appeared in a Vitaphone Varieties short film, Smash Your Baggage (1932). Although Snowden continued to be musically active throughout his life, after the mid 1930s, with the retirement of his long-time musical partner Bob Fuller, his career was one of relative obscurity in New York. He continued to play through to the 1950s, but outside the limelight. After a dispute with the musicians' union in New York, he moved to Philadelphia, where he taught music, counting among his pupils pianist Ray Bryant, his brother, bassist Tommy Bryant, and saxophonist Sahib Shihab, originally known as Edmond Gregory. Snowden was working as a parking lot attendant in 1959 when Chris Albertson, then