Jazz drummer Billy James, 73

Jazz drummer Billy James, 73, who began playing with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra at 15 and went on to entertain fans across the nation before finally settling in Philadelphia, died at Mercy Hospital Nov. 20.

Death was caused by complications from asthma, according to Danita Garrison Lyburn, his longtime companion.

Mr. James played with jazz greats such as Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and Sonny Stitt, and was a longtime mainstay at Philadelphia jazz clubs, including Ortlieb's Jazzhaus and Chris' Jazz Cafe.

"Drums was his life; he was just a natural talent when it comes to drums," Lyburn said. "I'm just now seeing all the people in the world he did know. You said 'Billy James,' and people stood up and took notice."

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Mr. James learned his craft there. When he was a child in the 1930s, his mother wanted him to play the horn, Lyburn said.

But when Mr. James went to pick up the horn at a pawn shop, he fell in love with some bongo drums. He phoned his mother to ask if he could switch to drums, "and history was made," Lyburn said.

He was active in the 1950s through the 1980s. He kept playing through 2008, said photographer and jazz fan Ben Johnson.

"I saw him in 2008, but it was clear that he was very sick," said Johnson, who snapped a rare photograph of Mr. James at that time.

Lyburn said Mr. James lived in Pittsburgh and Chicago and spent a long period in New York before settling in Philadelphia. The two were together 10 years.

Lyburn said that she did not much care for the drums when she first met Mr. James, but that changed.

"He could do things with those drums that made you cry," Lyburn said. "He was amazing, especially when [accompanying] an organ. It's very hard to hear, and he was always right on the beat."

Mr. James taught himself to read music while serving in the Air Force, and spent his service playing with the Air Force band, Lyburn said.

After that, he began performing on the road with a variety of jazz greats. Unlike other musicians who spent free time playing cards, Mr. James would read, he told Lyburn.

"He said that everybody used to try to get him to play cards," she said.

Mr. James first came on the jazz scene with the Hampton orchestra in 1951. Hampton, a skilled percussionist, thought Mr. James, at 15, was already playing at professional standards, wrote Eugene Chadbourne on www.answers.com

Chadbourne wrote that "the most distinctive aspect of James' drumming [was] an extremely well-disposed shuffle that he [seemed] able to reinvent endlessly, chorus after chorus."

Mr. James played to best advantage "with funky jazz guitarists and [was] featured on recordings with some of the best, including Grant Green and Pat Martino," Chadbourne wrote.

Mr. James was the favorite drummer of the hard bop saxophonist Sonny Stitt; in that role, he showed "unflagging commitment to accuracy during the execution of rapid versions of songs," Chadbourne wrote.

Some of Mr. James' recordings include Sonny Stitt, Just the Way It Was: "Live" at the Left Bank (Label M, 1971); Sonny Stitt/Don Patterson, Legends of Acid Jazz, Vol. 2 (Prestige, 1968); and Don Patterson, Boppin' & Burnin' (Prestige, 1968)

He married Delores James, now deceased, and the couple had two children, Rhonda and Shannon, who survive.

Funeral arrangements are private. A celebration of Mr. James' life is being planned in several weeks, Lyburn said, though no date has been set.