Jean Goldkette

John Jean Goldkette (18 March 1893–March 24, 1962) was a jazz pianist and bandleader.

Life

Goldkette is said to have been born March 18, 1893 in Valenciennes, France. However, there is some evidence that despite what he claimed, he was actually born in Patras, Greece. He was named after his mother, Angela Goldkette, a circus performer from Denmark, his father being unknown. He spent his childhood in Greece and Russia, where he studied piano at the Moscow Conservatory as a child prodigy. The family emigrated to the United States in 1911, and he performed in a classical ensemble in Chicago at the age of 15, later joining one of Edgar Benson's dance orchestras .

He leased a ballroom in Detroit and formed a band which grew to success, and was the foundation for a business empire acting as an agency for twenty orchestras and owning many dance halls. In 1936 he filed for bankruptcy, but over the next three decades he built up business again as a musician, conductor and promoter. He married Lee McQuillen, a newspaperwoman on March 4, 1939.

Bix Beiderbecke

Leon Bismark "Bix" Beiderbecke (March 10, 1903 – August 6, 1931) was an American jazz cornetist, jazz pianist, and composer.

With Louis Armstrong and Muggsy Spanier, Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s. His turns on "Singin' the Blues" and "I'm Coming, Virginia" (both 1927), in particular, demonstrated an unusual purity of tone and a gift for improvisation. With these two recordings, especially, he helped to invent the jazz ballad style and hinted at what, in the 1950s, would become cool jazz. "In a Mist" (1927), one of a handful of his piano compositions and one of only two he recorded, mixed classical (Impressionist) influences with jazz syncopation.

A native of Davenport, Iowa, Beiderbecke taught himself to play cornet largely by ear, leading him to adopt a non-standard fingering some critics have connected to his original sound. He first recorded with Midwestern jazz ensembles, The Wolverines and The Bucktown Five in 1924, after which he played briefly for the Detroit-based Jean Goldkette Orchestra before joining Frankie "Tram" Trumbauer for an extended gig at the Arcadia Ballroom in St. Louis. Beiderbecke and Trumbauer joined Goldkette in 1926. The band toured widely and famously played a set opposite Fletcher Henderson at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City in October 1926. He made his greatest recordings in 1927 (see above). In 1928, Trumbauer and Beiderbecke left Detroit to join the best-known and most prestigious dance orchestra in the country: the New-York-based Paul Whiteman Orchestra.

Bill Rank

Bill Rank (June 8, 1904 – May 20, 1979) was an American jazz trombonist.

Born in Lafayette, Indiana, he was best known for his work in the Jean Goldkette orchestra of the late 1920s alongside Bix Beiderbecke in small groups and with Paul Whiteman until 1938.

He was a member of the WLW radio staff orchestra in Cincinnati from 1942 to 1947 and led a local Dixieland group called the Over The Hill Gang. Rank also recorded and performed with Dick Sudhalter.

Select discography

As bandleader

With Bix Beiderbecke

Steve Brown

Steve Brown may refer to:

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern United States and is the United States' 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. The state has a maritime border in the Atlantic Ocean with Rhode Island, east of Long Island, as well as an international border with the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the north and Ontario to the west and north. The state of New York, with an estimated 19.8 million residents in 2015, is often referred to as New York State to distinguish it from New York City, the state's most populous city and its economic hub.

With an estimated population of nearly 8.5 million in 2014, New York City is the most populous city in the United States and the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. The New York City Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City is a global city, exerting a significant impact upon commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment, its fast pace defining the term New York minute. The home of the United Nations Headquarters, New York City is an important center for international diplomacy and has been described as the cultural and financial capital of the world, as well as the world's most economically powerful city. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State. Two-thirds of the state's population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% live on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th century Duke of York, future King James II of England. The next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany.