1. Ernest Loring "Red" Nichols was an American jazz cornetist, composer, and jazz bandleader.
22 Facts About Red Nichols
1. 2.
Red Nichols was one of the most prolific and influential jazz musicians in the late 1920s and early 1930s, appearing on over 4,000 recordings.
3.
Red Nichols's father was a college music professor, and Nichols was something of a child prodigy, playing difficult set pieces for his father's brass band by the age of 12.
4.
Young Nichols heard the early recordings of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and later those of Bix Beiderbecke, and these had a strong influence on him.
5.
Red Nichols recorded as the Arkansas Travelers, the California Red Heads, the Louisiana Rhythm Kings, the Charleston Chasers, Red and Miff's Stompers, and Miff Mole and His Little Molers.
6.
Red Nichols' band started with Mole on trombone and Jimmy Dorsey on alto saxophone and clarinet.
7.
Red Nichols tried to follow the changes and formed a swing band, but his recording career seemed to stall in 1932.
8.
People who make fools of themselves usually find a scapegoat, and when the critics were exposed to the music of Duke Ellington, Benny Carter, Coleman Hawkins, and others, they turned on Nichols and savaged him, trashing him as unfairly as they had revered him.
9.
Red Nichols' chief fault was an overly stiff, academic approach to jazz trumpet, but he did recognize merit as far as other jazz musicians were concerned and made some wonderful small-group recordings.
10.
Red Nichols survived the Great Depression by playing in show bands and pit orchestras.
11.
Red Nichols led Bob Hope's orchestra for a while, moving to California.
12.
Red Nichols married Willa Stutsman, a "stunning" George White's Scandals dancer, and they had a daughter.
13.
In 1942, their daughter contracted polio, which was misdiagnosed at first as spinal meningitis, and Red Nichols left Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra to work in the wartime shipyards.
14.
On May 2,1942, Red Nichols left his band to take an army commission after completing an engagement at Lantz's Merry-Go-Round in Dayton, Ohio.
15.
Red Nichols toured Europe as a goodwill ambassador for the State Department.
16.
In 1965, Red Nichols took his Five Pennies band to the Mint Hotel in Las Vegas.
17.
Red Nichols phoned the front desk, but was dead by the time the ambulance arrived.
18.
Red Nichols performed in and is mentioned in the 1950 Mickey Rooney and Jeanne Cagney film Quicksand.
19.
The 1959 Hollywood film The Five Pennies, the film biography of Red Nichols, starring Danny Kaye as Red Nichols, was loosely based on Nichols' life and career.
20.
Red Nichols made cameo appearances in the 1951 film Disc Jockey with Tommy Dorsey, and The Gene Krupa Story in 1959.
21.
Red Nichols's recording of "Poor Butterfly" is heard in the 1994 Woody Allen film Bullets Over Broadway and his recording of " Indiana" in Allen's 1999 film Sweet and Lowdown.
22.
In 1986, Red Nichols was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame.