John Coppola

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John Coppola (actually Giovanni Michelangelo Coppola , * 1929 in Geneva , New York ; † October 23, 2015 in San Francisco , California ) was an American jazz trumpeter and arranger who was mainly active in the Californian jazz scene, but also worked in Germany .

Life

Coppola began his music career at the age of 13 in Oakland . The first recordings were made in 1949 with the big band of Charles Mingus (Charles "Baron" Mingus Presents His Symphonic Airs) . In the 1950s he played in the big bands of Charlie Barnet and Stan Kenton ; he toured with Woody Herman and His Orchestra for over three years . He has also worked with Frank Sinatra , Nat King Cole , Dizzy Gillespie , Henry Mancini , Ella Fitzgerald , Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis throughout his career . Most recently, Coppola lived in San Francisco, where he worked as a teacher for over 15 years for the Monterey Music Festival , as an arranger and mentor for many young musicians. He wrote arrangements and played the trumpet for the Green Street Mortuary Band , which attended nearly 300 jazz funerals annually through Chinatown in San Francisco. The last recordings were made in 2007 with Mal Sharpe's Big Money In Jazz Band . In recent years he has come to Marburg again and again for concerts and tours of the Swinging Vodka Lemon Gang , for which he also worked as an arranger and workshop leader and, among other things, led the small big band project . In the field of jazz he was involved in 51 recording sessions between 1949 and 2007, including with Virgil Gonsalves (1959) and Cal Tjader (1963).

Coppola was married to singer Frances Lynne for 52 years, who died in 2008. In 2013 he married the saxophonist Lisa Pollard , with whom he had worked for 25 years in the Green Street Mortuary Band . He died after suffering from dementia .

Web links

  • Obituary. In: San Francisco Gate, November 1, 2015 (English)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Obituary of the Upper Hessian Press
  2. ↑ a b c Tom Lord : The Jazz Discography (online, accessed December 12, 2015)
personal data
SURNAME Coppola, John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Coppola, Giovanni Michelangelo (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz musician (trumpet, arrangements)
DATE OF BIRTH 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Geneva , New York , United States
DATE OF DEATH October 23, 2015
Place of death San Francisco , California , United States