Jimmy Maxwell
James Kendrick "Jimmy" Maxwell (* 9 January 1917 in Stockton , California; † 20th July 2002 in Great Neck , New York) was an American trumpeter of Swing . According to the Jazz Rough Guide , he was "a gifted soloist with a great stage presence" and "a world-renowned authority on trumpet", whose advice was sought by renowned musicians.
Life
Maxwell, who came from a family of musicians, initially played cornet and studied with Herbert L. Clarke and Benny Baker in the early 1930s . He began his career in 1933/34 with Gil Evans , then played with Jimmy Dorsey (1936), Maxine Sullivan and Skinnay Ennis , before joining Benny Goodman's band , of which he was a member from 1939 to 1943. He continued to work with Goodman in later years; in 1962 he was there on his tour of the Soviet Union . From 1943 he worked as a studio musician, first for the radio station CBS , then for NBC ; he starred in the shows of Perry Como (1945-63), Patti Page , Pat Boone and in The Tonight Show (1963-73). Maxwell played the trumpet solo in the theme song of the Coppola film The Godfather . As the first trumpeter of the NBC orchestra, he can be heard on hundreds of recordings and jingles made between 1950 and 1980.
From 1950 he also worked as a music teacher. In 1977 he recorded an album under his own name for Circle Records . He has also worked as a sideman with Woody Herman (1958), Count Basie , Duke Ellington (1973), Oliver Nelson , Gerry Mulligan , Maynard Ferguson , Quincy Jones (1964), the New York Jazz Repertory Company , Chuck Israel's National Jazz Ensemble and David Berger's Experimental Orchestra . He also played the bagpipes on the New York street parade for St. Patrick's Day between 1958 and 1964 and can even be heard on albums by John Lennon and Patti Smith ( Easter ) on this instrument . In his later years, Maxwell also played in Dixieland and swing ensembles such as Dick Sudhalter's New California Ramblers . Then he retired from the stage, published a textbook on The First Trumpeter in the early 1980s, and taught until 2001.
literature
- Ian Carr , Digby Fairweather , Brian Priestley : Rough Guide Jazz. The ultimate guide to jazz music. 1700 artists and bands from the beginning until today. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 1999, ISBN 3-476-01584-X .
- Leonard Feather , Ira Gitler : The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. Oxford University Press, New York 1999, ISBN 0-19-532000-X .
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Maxwell, Jimmy |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Maxwell, James Kendrick; Maxwell, Jim |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American jazz musician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 9, 1917 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Stockton (California) |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 20, 2002 |
| Place of death | Great Neck (New York) |