Daily Dose Of jazz…

Jimmy Maxwell was born on January 9, 1917 in Stockton, California. He took up the trumpet at age four and studied with a host of legendary brass teachers including Herbie Clarke in the Thirties.

During the 1930s Jimmy played with Gil Evans, Jimmy Dorsey, Maxine Sullivan and Skinnay Ennis before joining Benny Goodman. From 1943 into the early Seventies he worked as a studio musician for NBC playing on The Perry Como Show, The Patti Page Show, The Pat Boone Show and The Tonight Show.

He augmented his studio work during this period touring the Soviet Union in 1962, playing on hundreds of recordings and commercials and working as a sideman with among others Woody Herman, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Oliver Nelson, Gerry Mulligan, Maynard Ferguson, Quincy Jones, the New York Jazz Repertory Company and Chuck Israel’s National Jazz Ensemble.

Maxwell played the trumpet solo theme for the soundtrack of The Godfather. Later in life he worked with Dixieland jazz and swing ensembles and would reunite with Benny Goodman. Jimmy Maxwell led one session for Circle Records in 1977. He retired from recording and performing later in life but the swing jazz trumpeter still taught music from 1950 until 2001, passing away the following year on July 20, 2002.

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