bandleader

noun

Etymology: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰendʰ-der. Proto-Germanic *bandiz Old English bend Middle English band English band Proto-West Germanic *laidī Proto-Indo-European *-yósder. Proto-Italic *-āzijos Latin -āriusnom. Latin -āriusbor. Proto-Germanic *-ārijaz Proto-West Germanic *-ārī Proto-West Germanic *laid ▲ Proto-West Germanic *-ārī Proto-West Germanic *laidijārī Old English lǣdere Middle English leder English leader English bandleader From band + leader.

1. A musician who conducts or leads a band of musicians.

   “Before Brooklyn became the World Historical Hipster Hub, there were the Hepsters of Harlem. And well before there was an Urban Dictionary for every last nuance of non-standard English, the bandleader and amateur linguist Cab Calloway cataloged some of the unique speech of the 1930s and ’40s in his Hepster’s Dictionary.”

   “By and large back then, bassists weren’t bandleaders; Mingus was an anomaly.”