Hollywood On 52nd Street

In 1932 composer Harry Warren scored the music for the 1933 movie musical 42nd Street along with lyricist Al Dubin for Warner Brothers Studio. From the film came the classic jazz standards “Lullaby of Broadway”.

The film was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress and ranked #13 on the American Film Institute list of Best Musicals in 2006.

The Story: It is 1932, the depth of The Depression and noted Broadway producers Jones played by Robert McWade and Barry portrayed by Neal Sparks are putting on Pretty Lady, a musical starring Dorothy Brock Bebe Daniels. She is involved with wealthy Abner Dillon played by Guy Kibbee, the show’s “angel” of a financial backer, but while she is busy keeping him both hooked and at arm’s length, she is secretly seeing her old vaudeville partner, out-of-work Pat Denning.

Julian Marsh (is hired to direct, even though his doctor warns that he risks his life if he continues in his high-pressure profession; despite a long string of successes he is broke, a result of the 1929 Stock Market Crash. He must make his last show a hit, in order to have enough money to retire.

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Dennis Chambers was born May 9, 1959 in Baltimore Maryland. He started playing drums at the age of 4 and his ardent interest in drums at that age propelled him to keep playing whenever he got a chance. A child prodigy started performing in clubs at the age of 6, despite his lack of formal training. Within a short time, he had been invited to perform in most nightclubs in Baltimore area.

After graduating from high school in 1978, Chambers, then 18, joined George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, a band he played with until 1985. He was recruited in 1981 by the Sugar Hill Label to be their house drummer and played on many Sugar Hill releases including, “Rapper’s Delight”. A sought after first call drummer for his technique and speed, as well as his ability to play “in the pocket”. His session work and performance have included John Scofield, George Duke, The Brecker Brothers, Santana, John McLaughlin, Mike Stern, CAB, Craig Howe, Sugar Hill Gang and his own band Niacin, among others.

Dennis went on to gain membership with Special EFX for two years, then joined David Sanborn, and performed on the critically acclaimed Maceo Parker live album “Roots and Grooves” with the WDR Big Band. He has played with most of the major jazz-fusion musicians.

Drummer Dennis Chambers has appeared as a featured drummer on the late Show with David Letterman’s Drum Solo Week II, alongside other such notable players Tony Royster Jr., Gavin Harris, Neil Peart and Stewart Copeland. He continues to perform, tour and record.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Red Nichols was born Ernest Loring Nichols on May 8, 1905 in Ogden, Utah. A child prodigy, he learned to play the cornet and by the age of twelve he was playing difficult set pieces for his father’s brass band. Hearing the early recordings of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, and later those of Bix Beiderbecke, they had a strong influence and his style became polished, clean and incisive.

In the early 1920s, Nichols moved to the Midwest and joined a band called The Syncopating Seven, then joined the Johnny Johnson Orchestra and went with it to New York City in 1923. In New York he met and teamed up with trombonist Miff Mole and the two of them were inseparable for the next decade.

Nichols had good technique, could read music, and easily got session and studio work. In 1926 he and Miff Mole began a prodigious stint of recording over 100 sides for the Brunswick label, with a variety of bands, most of them known as “Red Nichols and His Five Pennies”. Very few of these groups were actually quintets; the name was simply a pun on “Nickel”, since there were “five pennies” in a nickel

He also recorded under a number of other names, employing Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Jack Teagarden, Pee Wee Russell, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang and Gene Krupa among others. He would go on to record for Edison, Victor, Bluebird, Variety and Okeh record labels.

By the time the Swing Era arrived his recording career stalled even though he formed his own band. The transition from Dixieland to swing was not easy for him and the critics who once lauded him now trashed his output. During the Depression he played in show bands and pit orchestras, moved out to California and led Bob Hopes orchestra and during WWII gave up music for an Army commission. After the war he returned to music playing small clubs, hosting jam sessions and getting better engagements at the top clubs in the city – Zebra room, Tudor room in San Francisco’s palace Hotel and Pasadena’s Sheraton.

He toured Europe as a goodwill ambassador for the State Department, performed in Mickey Rooney film Quicksand, and was the subject of This Is Your Life. By 1965 he was in Las Vegas with his band playing the Mint Hotel. Only a few days into the date, he was sleeping in his suite and was awakened by paralyzing chest pains. He managed to call the front desk and an ambulance was summoned, but it arrived too late.

On June 28, 1965, cornetist, composer, and bandleader Red Nichols, rumored to have appeared on over 4000 recordings during the 1920s alone, passed away. That night the band went on as scheduled, but at the center of the band a spotlight pointed down at an empty chair in Nichols’ customary spot. He has been the subject of a film biography portrayed by Danny Kaye, had a cameo in the biopic the Gene Krupa Story and in 1986 was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame.

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