15 Facts About Dan Terry

Dan Terry was an American big band leader, arranger, and trumpet and flugelhorn player who appeared at the Birdland jazz club with Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Chris Connor, Johnny Smith, and others.

Dan Terry made half a dozen LP recordings, including 20 sides on Columbia Records in 1954, and wrote music for and performed in the films The Hustler and The Manchurian Candidate.

Dan Terry studied music theory at the College of the Pacific on the GI Bill from 1948 to 1949.

Dan Terry recorded four sides arranged by Marty Paich for Vita Records in 1952, including "Autumn in New York" and "Terry Cloth".

Dan Terry's band went into Birdland in 1954, playing with Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington.

Dan Terry recorded 20 sides included on Teen Age Dance Session and Teen Age Dance Party.

Dan Terry toured with the Birdland All Stars at Boston Arena and Carnegie Hall as a featured artist with the Count Basie Band.

Dan Terry was on the music staff for The Dean Martin Show, The Hollywood Palace, six television specials with Jackie Gleason, Gleason's recordings for Capitol Records, and twelve albums with George Williams for CBS.

Dan Terry owned and operated Big Daddy's Nightclub at the Travel and Transportation Building at the 1964 New York World's Fair.

Dan Terry was musical director at the Basin Street East club in New York from 1962 to 1965 and conductor for Sammy Davis Jr.

Dan Terry then moved to Las Vegas, where he was prominent in the city's music community in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Dan Terry played trumpet and led his big band in performances at the Pussycat A-Go-Go Club, the Tropicana, the Mint, Thunderbird, and Sahara hotels, and in 1979, a four-week engagement at the Dunes Hotel with weekly radio broadcasts on KDWN-AM.

From 1976 to 1977, Dan Terry lived in Toronto, where he formed the Horns of Toronto.

Dan Terry produced the band's album Bein' Green on the Metronome label in 1999.

Dan Terry died in Danville, Illinois in December 2011 at the age of 87.