Ernest Loring "Red" Nichols (May 8, 1905–June 28, 1965) was an American jazz cornettist, composer, and jazz bandleader.
Over his long career, Nichols recorded in a wide variety of musical styles, and critic Steve Leggett[1] describes him as "an expert cornet player, a solid improviser, and apparently a workaholic, since he is rumored to have appeared on over 4,000 recordings during the 1920s alone."
Biography
Early life and career
Red Nichols was born in Ogden, Utah, the son of a music teacher. By the age of 12 he was playing cornet with his father's brass band. He decided to take up the new style of music called jazz after hearing the phonograph records of the Original Dixieland Jass Band.
In 1923 he moved east to perform with a band in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and (with a few tours of the midwest) made New York City his base throughout the 1920s and 1930s. He worked for various bandleaders including Paul Whiteman and Harry Reser. Henry Halstead was a regular in the cooperative California Ramblers in addition to leading groups under his own name (often called Red Nichols & His Five Pennies), and of the band of his friend trombonist Miff Mole. Nichols became one of the busiest phonograph session musicians of his era, making hundreds of recording sessions of jazz and hot dance band music. He also played in several Broadway shows.
Brunswick Records Era
In 1927, Red Nichols and His Five Pennies reached number one on the U.S. pop singles chart with his recording of "Ida, Sweet as Apple Cider", which was number one for three weeks, reaching that position during the week of November 26, 1927.
During his Brunswick career (1926-1932) a virtual who's who of great jazz musicians were members of Nichols' studio recording sessions; see below for more information.
Other labels Nichols recorded for included Edison 1926, Victor 1927, 1928, 1930, 1931 (individual sessions), Bluebird 1934, 1939, back to Brunswick for a session in 1934, Variety 1937, and finally OKeh in 1940.
Later career
In 1942 Nichols moved to California, where he headlined with his own band, as Red Nichols And His Five Pennies, in Los Angeles and San Francisco into the 1950s.
Nichols and his band performed briefly, billed as themselves, in Quicksand, a 1950 crime film starring Mickey Rooney.
The 1959 Hollywood film The Five Pennies, the film biography of Red Nichols, starring Danny Kaye as Red Nichols, was very loosely based on Nichols' career. Nichols played his own trumpet parts for the film, but did not appear on screen. The Paramount movie received four Academy Award nominations. "The Five Pennies" movie theme song was composed by Sylvia Fine, the wife of Danny Kaye. Nichols also made a cameo appearance in the biopic The Gene Krupa Story in 1959.
Nichols and his band toured the United States and overseas until Nichols suffered a sudden fatal heart attack in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1965.
Compositions by Red Nichols
Red Nichols' compositions include "Hurricane" with Paul Madeira Mertz, "Five Pennies" (1927), "That's No Bargain", "Get With It", "Hangover" with Miff Mole, "The King Kong", "Nervous Charlie", "Trumpet Sobs" (1926), "The Parade of the Pennies", "Sugar", "Overnight Hop", "Lowland Blues", and "Meet Miss 8 Beat".
Honors
In 1986, Red Nichols was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame.
Collaborators
References
- ^ http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:k9fpxqealdse
External links
