Ernest Loring "Red" Nichols (May 8, 1905-June 28, 1965) was an American jazz cornettist. 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 and Henry Halstead., was a regular in the cooperative California Ramblers in addition to leading groups under his own name (often called Red Nichols and 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.
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Wikipedia: ...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 cornet 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. [...]
Red Nichols - Miff Mole
"That's A Plenty"
Red Nichols and His Five Pennies
"Haunting Blues"
I saw that movie! But then, who didn't? :) Good night, Will.
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