Arthur Parker Whetsel

Arthur Parker Whetsel was born on February 22, 1905, in Punta Gorda, Florida, and was the son of Reverend Oscar N. Whetsel. Arthur grew up in Los Angeles, California, and started playing the cornet at eight years old. Later, his family moved to Washington D.C., and he became one of the members of Duke Ellington's first band, The Washingtonians, on the trumpet. Arthur left the band in 1923 to study medicine but returned in 1928. Around 1938, he was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and was confined to the Central Islip State Hospital (later the Central Islip Psychiatric Center) in Suffolk County, New York, where he died in May 1940.