Nick Travis: The Panic Is On - JazzWax

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August 30, 2011

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Han Schulte

Nick Travis worked with many big bands, like Quincy Jones a.o. With Gerry Mulligan Nick recorded early 50's and with his Concert Jazz Band early 60's.
Norman Granz organised one European tour for the Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz Band in the fall of 1960 with trumpetplayers Conte Candoli, Don Ferrara and Nick Travis. In the Amsterdam Concertgebouw these 3 played at the 5 november nightconcert after intermission beautiful solo's and chases. One journalist wrote: "Each followed the other so beautiful, it seemed like one instrument was speaking."
Han Schulte
Netherlands

Peter Sokolowski

Great post -- great player.

Harry Allen & Joe Cohn recently recorded "Travisimo" on an Arbors date. Nice
to hear that tune again.

That's Travis trading with Maynard on "The Wailing Boat" -- dig the double-toungue mariner quote from Nick. Extremely difficult technically; probably only Clark Terry could also have done it that way...

T.K. Tortch

I don't think I ever heard of Nick Travis before, though I'm guessing if I looked at the liner notes on my records more closely, I would find him.

And that's why I visit this site about every day - which I could have already said about a dozen times, and maybe I did!!

Love the bell on his horn in the pic at the top of the post. Looks like it saw a little trauma.

Jery Rowan

Marc, not sure why you equate Nick Travis with Don Fagerquist. Nick’s tone was fat and warm, Don’s was thinner and cooler. Don was also a master of the ‘controlled breathing’ technique only practiced by a handful of others. Nick wasn’t. Other than both being very busy musicians, I really don't see much in the way of similarities.

I’m happy to say I still have my vinyl copy of “The Panic is On”, a bubbly recording bursting with energy. So thanks for the reminder, it's been years since I've had it on. I think I’ll now go pull it down from the shelf and play me some tracks.

RJS

Out of left field, but does anyone know where Nick was buried? No one seems to know. He had a son living in Austin Texas, also a musician, but I found out about him only after he passed away. Nick was from the Olney section of Philadelphia, and a childhood friend of his told me he was serious about the horn from a young age--something that shows up in this post. He and Conrad Gozzo died within days of each other. Ironic.

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  • Marc Myers writes regularly for The Wall Street Journal and is author of "Anatomy of 55 More Songs," "Anatomy of a Song," "Rock Concert: An Oral History" and "Why Jazz Happened." Founded in 2007, JazzWax has won three Jazz Journalists Association awards.
Marc Myers2 2021 (c)by Alyse Myers

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