Tag Archives: Benny Goodman

An excellent veteran trumpeter from Britain, Derek Watkins amazingly led just two albums (1988’s Elevated Demand for MA Music and 1995’s On the Rainbow using the Brian Lemon Quartet in Zephyr/New Note) in his career. The kid and grandson of trumpeters, Watkins started playing trumpet himself when he was six. …

A tireless showman and an underrated music skill, Louis Prima swung his method to icon position because of an irresistible, infectious audio whose appeal translated across years. Nominally a golf swing artist, Prima’s unique audio also encompassed New Orleans-style jazz, boogie-woogie, leap blues, R&B, early rock and roll & roll, …

Dick Sudhalter has already established a unique dual career while an excellent trad-oriented cornetist so when a jazz journalist. The crowning accomplishment of his second option profession was the co-authorship (with Philip Evans and William Dean-Myatt) from the outstanding Bix Beiderbecke biography Bix: Man and Story. Less known is the …

Using the premature death of Eddie Lang in 1933, Dick McDonough and Carl Kress were considered his likely successors both on jazz dates and in the studios. McDonough had been a very active player. He previously began in 1927 like a banjoist with Crimson Nichols, had turned over to acoustic …

Among the all-time great clarinetists and arguably the most important from the 1920s, Johnny Dodds (whose younger sibling Baby Dodds was one of the primary important drummers) had a memorable firmness in both lower and top registers, was an excellent blues participant, and held his own with Louis Armstrong (zero …

Among the best clarinetists from the golf swing period, Johnny Mince never received much identification beyond that of his fellow music artists because he found maturity through the period of Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw, and didn’t business lead his own rings. Mince caused Joe Haymes Orchestra from 1929-34, was …

Lennie Hayton’s profession could be easily split into two. In early stages he was a jazz-oriented pianist and arranger involved with classic jazz schedules of the past due 1920’s. With the middle-1940’s he was mainly an arranger for orchestras and quite active as a studio room musician. Hayton excelled during …

Zeke Zarchy looms huge among the leading trumpeters from the golf swing era. An essential element of big rings led by Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, and Bob Crosby, he continues to be best kept in mind for his celebrated tenure with Glenn Miller, and was the last making it through …

John Kirby led a most unusual group through the height from the big-band period, a sextet made up of trumpeter Charlie Shavers, clarinetist Buster Bailey, altoist Russell Procope, pianist Billy Kyle, drummer O’Neil Spencer, and his own bass. Although Shavers and Bailey could possibly be quite extroverted, the firmly organized …

A thick-toned tenor saxophonist whose spirited and enthusiastic solos helped compensate for his weak music-reading abilities, Vido Musso was popular for an interval within the 1940s. His family members moved to america in 1920, settling in Detroit. Musso initial performed clarinet before switching to tenor. He shifted to LA in …