JazzSnaps: Randy Brooks (1946)

Randy Brooks played trumpet like Harry James. Lots of pep and power with plenty of bent notes. Brooks recorded with Hal Kemp in the late 1930s, Claude Thornhill in '42 and Les Brown in '43 and '44. In 1945, Brooks formed a band that included tenor saxophonist Stan Getz and Getz's vocalist wife Beverly Byrne. The band recorded until 1947, the year of one of Brooks' biggest hits, Tenderly. But swing was his thing at a time when fans were going for bop.

By the end of the decade, according to Wikipedia, Brooks married bandleader Ina Ray Hutton and moved to Los Angeles, where he suffered a stroke and was unable to continue as a musician. He died of smoke inhalation in a fire at his Springvale, Maine, home in 1967.

These snapshots come from Betty's fabulous collection  of photos, sent along by her friend Chris. The middle image is likely from February 1946, when the Brooks band went into the Adams Theater in Newark, N.J. The other two seem as though they were taken later in the year, when the weather was warmer.

Betty [pictured with Brooks above] has donated all of her prints, including these, to Rutgers University's Institute of Jazz Studies. But since she and Chris also are big JazzWax readers, they wanted you to see them, too.

More JazzSnaps: Go to the right-hand column of JazzWax and scroll down to "JazzSnaps" for links.

JazzWax clip: Here's Randy Brooks' Tenderly from 1947...

 

Comments

[Han Schulte]

Randy Brooks records "Harlem Nocurne" (1945) and "Tenderly" (1947), both for Decca, sold each over one million copies.
A picture of his band playing in New York in the late 1940's can be found in Leo Walker's "The Big Band Almanac" (1978 p. 51).
A picture of Randy playing solo trumpet can be found in George T. Simon's "The Big Bands" in the section "Horn-playing Leaders" (1967/1971 p. 467).

[Brew]

Randy Brooks was one of the most talented, musical, and risk-taking brass men on the planet. He could play a glissando on the trumpet like no one else. And his staccato work was more precise than Harry's.

He surely *was* "the man with the horn". Why he never made a bigger name of himself is one of the mysteries in jazz history; on the other hand it's quite clear: He was never the star type, the fellow for the gossip columns like his closest competitor Harry James.

He was a musician in the first place, and he took his business very seriously. Maybe too seriously?

His band could have swung more often for my taste; its rhythm section wasn't too flexible, and some of the charts sounded a bit "bombastic", if not overloaded sometimes. They couldn't cut it loose.

Anyway, there are enough splendid assets like the wonderful vocalist Harry Prime ("Lamplight"is just beautiful!), and of course Randy's sparkling horn, which let me listen to it frequently.

It was just the wrong time - the mid 1940's - for getting an orchestra started. R&B came up, the smaller jazz bands played bop or dixieland, and the pop vocalists took over completely.

Here's another track with Randy, "The Man With The Horn" from 1945:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EWnUOO9a8o

[Brew]

P.S. -- The snapshots are unique, Marc. Thanks for sharing.