People in the entertainment business with this name include a film producer, a recording engineer and a Southern rock guitarist, but this Lloyd Phillips is the one with credentials dating back to the early days of both jazz and the recording industry. The pianist Lloyd Phillips, whose discography includes a large pile of sides with Sidney Bechet, started studying his instrument during the twilight of his school days. He went to work with several revues touring the New England region before becoming associated in 1927 with a New York City orchestra led by Dave Alford.
Phillips maintained a combo collaboration with male trumpeter June Clark through 1930, followed by jobs with Chick Webb, Dave Nelson and others. He seized a glorious opportunity to travel abroad courtesy of the Blackbirds revue but was back in Manhattan by the mid '30s, not choosing to expatriate -- unlike some of the other musicians touring in this show. Phillips did begin a serious change in his work mode soon thereafter, however, going from his demanding but fairly anonymous role in orchestras to an equally demanding but more personal creative outlet acccompanying singers. Perhaps this was his greatest talent, resulting by the '50s in a steady relationship with vocalist Pearl Bailey.
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Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi