Red Nichols

Happy Birthday, Red Nichols 1905-1965...Critic Steve Leggett described him as,"an expert cornet player, a solid improvisor, and apparently a workaholic, since he is rumored to have appeared on over 4,000 recordings during the 1920's alone." Nichols was at the very least exuberantly engaged in the music he loved and took every opportunity to play.

Born in Ogden, Utah, Nichols' father was a college music professor who passed on his knowledge to his young son. Nichols was playing cornet in his father's brass band  at the age of 12. Listening to the recordings of The Original Dixeland Jass Band and, especially, Bix Beiderbecke further helped him to hone a polished, clean style. In the early 20's he moved to the Midwest and joined the Syncopating Seven and then Johnny Johnson Orchestra, moving with them to New York in 1923.

New York would become Nichols' base and where he met and teamed up with trombonist Miff Mole. Together they would record numerous records with a variety of bands but most notably as Red Nichols and his Five Pennies. Nichols and his band were making anywhere from 10 to 12 records a week at one point. He was an excellent sight reader and hired top notch players including Jimmy Dorsey. Later in the 20's the band's personnel was nearly a who's who of white jazz musicians of the period. Players who rotated into the band included Benny Goodman, Glen Miller, Jack Teagarden, Pee Wee Russell, Eddie Lang, Gene Krupa and Joe Venuti .

During the rise of the swing era during the Depression there was less work for Dixieland musicians. Nichols kept himself afloat by playing in pit orchestras for Broadway shows, leading the orchestra for "Girl Crazy" and "Strike Up the Band". When his wife contracted polio in 1942, Nichols left the business and took a job in the wartime shipyards. At the close of the war, Nichols formed a new Five Pennies and began playing small clubs in the Los Angeles area.

Word got out among musicians that Nichols was back and soon many of them would show up, turning his gigs into jam sessions. The small engagements soon led to bigger ones and the band found itself playing finer clubs and hotels up and down the west coast. In 1959, Paramount released a a very loosely based film biography of Nichols called "The Five Pennies" starring Danny Kaye. Nichols played the coronet parts for the sound track and the picture was nominated for four Academy Awards.

Nichols and his band toured Europe as Goodwill Ambassadors and performed in two more films. He died of a heart attack in Los Vegas during an engagement at the new Mint Hotel. The band went on as scheduled but left his coronet in a spotlight on his seat as a tribute.