Benny Heller

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Benny Heller or Ben Heller was an American jazz guitarist of the swing , the end of the 1930s with Benny Goodman played and then at Harry James .

Heller was rhythm guitarist in Alexa Bartha's Steel Pier Band in Atlantic City before joining Benny Goodman in March or April 1938, replacing Allan Reuss . He left the band with Harry James in January 1939, when the latter formed his own band, in which Heller also played. There are recordings of him from 1938 to 1947. In the early 1990s he sold instruments made by the Gretsch company in the Washington, DC area

In 1938 and 1940 he won the Down Beat readers' poll as a guitarist.

Individual references / comments

  1. ↑ The trumpeter Ziggy Elman also moved from there to the Goodman Band
  2. ↑ James Lincoln Collier Benny Goodman , Heyne, p. 293
  3. ^ Arthur Rollini Thirty Years with the Big Bands , p. 67
  4. ↑ Steve Jordan, Tom Scanlan Rhythm Man. Fifty Years in Jazz , University of Michigan 1993, p. 138
  5. ↑ Tom Lord Jazz Discography
  6. ↑ Steve Jordan Rhythm Man. Fifty Years in Jazz , p. 138
personal data
SURNAME Heller, Benny
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Heller, Ben
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz guitarist
DATE OF BIRTH 20th century