Teaching at Du Sable High School, Captain Walter Dyett was one of the most revered figures in Chicago Black Music. He was the man who had inspired and trained no less than Nat 'King' Cole, Dorothy Donegan, Johnny Griffin, Gene Ammons, Von Freeman, Richard Davis, Fred Hopkins, and other South Side music giants too numerous to mention.

http://www.jazzinstituteofchicago.org/index.asp?target=/jazzgram/bronzeville/fortyseventhstreet.asp

ILLINOIS WRITERS PROJECT: "NEGRO IN ILLINOIS" PAPERS

An archival finding aid to the manuscript collection

Chicago Public Library

Woodson Regional Library

Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature

Robert Miller, Curator

Finding Aid by Michael Flug, Senior Archivist

NATIVE SONS-- MUSIC AND ART (cont.) BOX 49

28. Interview with Walter Dyett, bandmaster for the Eighth Regiment and at DuSable High School. [G. Lewis] (7)

http://www.chipublib.org/002branches/woodson/harshdocs/iwpfindingaid.html#iii4

Published Chicago Tribune on 09/06/1998 (761 words)

To this day, DuSable High School is revered as a sacred place in jazz, a place where so many musical giants took their first steps.

No one deserves more credit for this than Capt. Walter H. Dyett, the tough and volatile bandleader who trained everyone from singer-pianist Nat "King" Cole to avant-garde trombonist Julian Priester, from comedian (and former bandleader) Redd Foxx to singer-guitarist Bo Diddley (who studied violin).

Published Chicago Tribune on 09/23/1992 (273 words)

Of the many musical causes championed by the Jazz Institute of Chicago, one of the most endearing has to be its concerts in memory of Capt. Walter Dyett.

Beginning in the late `30s, the legendary bandmaster inspired many young musicians at DuSable High School. Nat Cole, Dinah Washington, Von Freeman, Gene Ammons, Johnny Griffin, Dorothy Donegan, Wilbur Campbell-the list of Dyett's prote ge s includes some of the most respected names in jazz.

Published Chicago Tribune on 03/21/1989 (1053 words)

Could it be that they were ever so young or so raw, thick-fingered kids coaxing music out of borrowed instruments, hoping to pass their chemistry class so Captain Dyett wouldn't kick them out of the band?

Monday afternoon, some of the world's finest jazz musicians recalled those days in the way they thought best, at a homecoming concert at Du Sable High School in honor of Captain Walter Henri Dyett, legendary band director of South Side Chicago for 30 years, a man who taught 20,000.