Will Bradley

Will Bradley (left) with Mart Garvey and William P. Gottlieb , NBC-WRC Show, Washington, DC, circa 1940. Photo: Gottlieb

Will Bradley (born July 12, 1912 in Newton , New Jersey , † July 15, 1989 in Flemington , New Jersey; actually Wilbur Schwichtenburg ) was an American big band leader and trombonist of swing , dance music and the "big band - Boogie Woogie ”.

Will Bradley started out as a studio musician (with Red Nichols , among others ), played in Ray Noble's US band in 1935/6 (on the mediation of Glenn Miller ) and founded in 1939 with the drummer (and singer) Ray McKinley , whom he played with Milt Shaw and his Detroiters ”in 1931, a big band that was boosted by boogie-woogie hits like“ Beat me Daddy, Eight to the Bar ”(with McKinley as the singer),“ Down the Road a Piece ”(1940),“ Bounce me brother with a solid four "and" Scrub me Mamma with a Boogie Beat "became known. Many of his hits were from Don Raye , who also appeared as a singer with the Will Bradley Trio (with Doc Goldberg and Freddie Slack ).

His first hit in the charts was the Walter Donaldson number " (What Can I Say) After I Say I'm Sorry " (# 26) in May 1940 , followed by a total of eight other hits. With Don Rye's “Beat me, Daddy, Eight to the Bar”, he managed to reach number 2 in the charts. Their hit numbers often had strange titles like "Etude Brutus" or " Celery Staks at Midnight " ( Celery Staks at Midnight , 1940).

The Bradley band existed until 1942 and played in 1940 in "Famous Door" on 52nd Street in New York. In it u played a. Peanuts Hucko (tenor saxophone) and Freddie Slack (piano), who also arranged for the band, but founded his own band in 1941. During the Second World War he was in the Glenn Miller Airforce Band, but also recorded with his own band, so with Billy Butterfield , Johnny Guarnieri and Bob Haggart his last chart success "Cryin 'the Boogie Blues" (# 23) and u. a. with Anita O'Day (1947). Bradley then became a studio musician, who played for many years on the "Tonight Show" by Johnny Carson .

His son is the jazz drummer Bill Bradley (* 1938).

literature

• George T. Simon: The Big Bands . Foreword by Frank Sinatra. 4th edition. New York: Schirmer Books / London: Collier Macmillan Publishers, 1981, pp. 92-98

Web links

• Bigband Database