• Genre: Comedy
• Instrument: Trombone

Biography

This Midwesterner began his professional music career on the USO circuits during the second World War, backing up the likes of Jan Savitt and Frank Sinatra. When peacetime came, he started teaching music, but left this sedate environment to become one of the City Slickers, under the direction of Spike Jones. He stayed with the group from 1947 through 1952, and was part of the "milkshake band" that came into power once Jones decided he'd reached his limit with alcoholic sidemen. Other players who were enlisted in the band as part of this new regime included Roger Donley on bass and tuba, drummer Joe Siracusa, saxophonist Dick Gardner, and pianist Paul Leu. This version of Jones' band was solidly into pranks, some of which were choreographed into the show and others that happened as a total shock to some. Colvin's mastery of the fine art of trombone techniques hadn't quite prepared him for responsibilities as a City Slicker, which included rigging his pants to fall down and come back up in synchronized time to sound effects he was making on the trombone. Most of Colvin's musical responsibilities were related to executing various parts of the arrangements, with little solo space. In fact, his only nightly solo was a four-bar spot during one of the numbers that featured a female vocalist. Colvin's ability to execute this solo spot properly was, in his mind, badly hampered by the fact that sitting next to him on the bandstand was the grinning, obnoxious banjo player Freddie Morgan. Whatever Morgan decided was the appropriate thing to play on banjo during a trombone solo, Colvin didn't like it. He wound up having to bribe the banjo player to lay off during the solo. The two players arrived at a nightly fee of one dollar. The arrangement was Colvin had to lay the dollar bill on Morgan's music stand. Then, when the trombone solo came up, the banjo player would instantly stop his plinkety-plunking. When the trombone solo was over, the banjo would come back in. Acknowledged as a skinflint when it came to financial matters, leader Jones perhaps took pity on the trombonist having to shell out bucks from his own pocket in order to clear up the solo space. When Jones created a polka project in the early '50s, he factored in a lot of solo space for the low horns of Colvin and Donley, perhaps a bit of a polka payback for the payouts. Colvin played on many of the elaborate and amusing Jones recordings from this period, including "Morpheus," "Dance of the Hours," and the band's satire of "Ghost Riders in the Sky."

Colvin also worked in the band of self-described mambo king Perez Prado. After the '50s, the trombonist retired from the music business, going first into a restaurant franchise and then into a succesful nursery. He was married to Gladys Gardner, one of Jones' Slickettes. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, All Music Guide