Red Nichols

American jazz cornetist and composer

• Born: May 8, 1905
• Birthplace: Ogden, Utah
• Died: June 28, 1965
• Place of death: Las Vegas, Nevada

Nichols, a jazz cornetist, bandleader, and composer, was a major figure in the development of hot jazz.

Member of Red Nichols and His Five Pennies

The Life

Ernest Loring Nichols was born into a musical family, and performing was a part of his life from a young age. Under the supervision of his father, a music professor at Weber College, Nichols began playing the cornet at age three, and he debuted publicly a year later. At the age of ten, his performance with the Nichols family’s musical act garnered acclaim in local newspapers. Nichols pursued jazz in his early teens, to the dismay of his father. After being dismissed from Culver Military Academy in 1920, he continued to hone his playing skills, and he joined his first working jazz band in 1922. Over the next few years Nichols played in a number of bands in Indiana, Utah, and Ohio with the Syncopated Five and in Atlantic City with Johnny Johnson’s Orchestra. By 1923 he was living in New York City, playing with both Johnson and George Olson’s Music, and it was during this time that Nichols first heard the playing of Bix Beiderbecke.

During the second half of the 1920’s, Nichols recorded under various group names such as Red Nichols and His Five Pennies, the Hottentots, the Red Heads, the Original Memphis Five, and Red and Miff’s Stompers. He had gathered around him a superior group of regular collaborators, such as Miff Mole, Jimmy Dorsey, Vic Berton, Eddie Lang, Joe Venuti, and Pee Wee Russell. By 1929 Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman were sitting in. Nichols also led the bands for two George Gershwin musicals, Girl Crazy (1930) and the revised version of Strike Up the Band (1930).

Nichols continued to lead bands into the swing era, but in 1942 undesirable tour dates and a desire to help the war effort led him to bow out of the music business to work in a shipyard. A year later, he was playing again as a sideman, and he reformed the Five Pennies in 1944 with a new lineup. Nichols continued performing and recording for the rest of his life, playing extensively for radio broadcasts, with Hollywood as his home base. He played at Hollywood clubs and later in Las Vegas, and he occasionally toured. In 1959 a film based on his life, The Five Pennies, was released, starring Danny Kaye as Nichols, reigniting some of his earlier popularity. At the time of his death, his band was engaged at the Mint in Las Vegas, where, according to the Mint’s entertainment director, he was still “packing them in, young and old.”

The Music

It was the playing of Nick LaRocca on the early recordings of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band that inspired Nichols to pursue jazz, but it was not until he heard the playing of Beiderbecke that Nichols’s style came fully to fruition. Through this, and the influence of his closest musical partner in the 1920’s, trombonist Mole, Nichols developed a propensity for adventurous arrangements, dynamic contrast, and staccato attack. Nichols’s prolific and progressive period, 1925 to 1930, coincided with the rise of the burgeoning recording industry in popular and syncopated music. Nichols took full advantage of this, and as a result, he was one of the most recorded jazz musicians during this time. The numerous sessions, sometimes up to twelve a week, were opportunities to produce new musical ideas.

Although he led bands into the 1930’s, other stars eventually outshined him. Later in his career, Nichols was a working musician in the commercial realm, performing in radio broadcast orchestras that regularly accompanied popular singers such as Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Dinah Shore, and Al Jolson. As the vanguard of progressive jazz moved on to bebop and beyond, Nichols’s music remained centered around his early work.

“Washboard Blues.” On December 8, 1926, Nichols’s group recorded under the name of Red Nichols and His Five Pennies for the first time. This Hoagy Carmichael composition was one of the songs recorded. It features the hot timpani playing of Berton, with his practice of using the pedal to alter the pitch of the timpani in tempo with the chord changes of the song. Although Nichols’s solo is somewhat quotidian, he adds a nice improvisatory duet with clarinetist Dorsey and precise playing during the ensemble breaks.

“Bugle Call Rag.” Recorded on March 3, 1927, this was the first Five Pennies session to include jazz violinist Venuti. The song alternates seamlessly between ensemble playing and individual solos, with every member of the group getting a turn: Venuti, Dorsey, Mole, Artie Schutt on piano, Eddie Lang on guitar, and Nichols.

“Ida! Sweet as Apple Cider.” This 1927 recording of the Benny Leonardvaudeville song was the Five Pennies’ first hit. The lineup included newcomers Russell on clarinet and Fud Livingston on tenor sax. The arrangement is straightforward. It begins with the melody played in harmony, followed by solos from Nichols, Mole, and Russell. Nichols’s playing is melodic but dynamic, sweet but sharp. Commercial recordings such as this one, though not artistically groundbreaking, were an important part of Nichols’s career.

Musical Legacy

Nichols’s immense number of recordings and performances during the mid- to late 1920’s solidifies his place as an undeniable force in the early New York City jazz scene. In addition to his clean and virtuosic cornet playing style and his contributions to hot jazz, he is remembered for the tightness and musicality of his ensembles. As a bandleader, he had the opportunity to influence many young players, such as Goodman and Miller, both of whom later became stars of the swing era. Nichols’s stylistic contributions to jazz may have been limited to a relatively short period of immense output, but his work and leadership permanently influenced the shape of small-group jazz.

Principal Recordings

albums (with Red Nichols and His Five Pennies): Jazz Time, 1950; Red Nichols and the Five Pennies, Vol. 1, 1950; Red Nichols and the Five Pennies, Vol. 2, 1950; Red Nichols and Band, 1953; Syncopated Chamber Music, Vol. 1, 1953; Syncopated Chamber Music, Vol. 2, 1953; For Collectors Only, 1954; In Love with Red, 1955; Hot Pennies, 1956; Parade of the Pennies, 1958; Red Nichols and His Pennies, 1960; Blues and Old Time Rags, 1963.

singles (with Red Nichols and His Five Pennies): “Boneyard Shuffle,” 1926; “Washboard Blues,” 1926; “Alabama Stomp,” 1927; “Bugle Call Rag,” 1927; “Hurricane,” 1927; “Ida! Sweet as Apple Cider,” 1927; “Mean Dog Blues,” 1927; “Dear Old Southland,” 1928; “My Gal Sal,” 1928; “Poor Butterfly,” 1928 (with Scrappy Lampert); “Get Happy,” 1929; “I May Be Wrong,” 1929; “Indiana,” 1929; “Say It with Music,” 1929; “They Didn’t Believe Me,” 1929; “Strike Up the Band,” 1930; “Sweet Georgia Brown,” 1930.

Bibliography

Evans, Philip R., Stanley Hester, Stephen Hester, and Linda Evans. The Red Nichols Story: After Intermission, 1942-1965. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1996. This book combines personal accounts, annotations, and discographies to chronicle the second half of Nichols’s life in detail.

Murphy, Frank. “The Improvisations of Red Nichols on the Five Pennies Recordings (1926-1929).” Jazzforschung [Jazz Research] 33 (2001): 171-188. In this article, Murphy analyzes Nichols’s 1929 recording of “Indiana,” with a focus on improvisation techniques and patterns. Includes transcriptions and discography.

Schuller, Gunther. The Swing Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Schuller addresses Nichols’s importance in this book’s chapter on small-group jazz.

Shapiro, Nat, and Nat Hentoff, eds. Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya: The Story of Jazz as Told By the Men Who Made It. New York: Dover, 1966. In this book, Nichols comments on his music from 1925 to 1930, and he discusses Beiderbecke and Mole.

Stroff, Stephen M. Red Head: A Chronological Survey of “Red” Nichols and His Five Pennies. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1996. This thorough treatment chronicles and analyzes Nichols’s hot recordings up to 1933. Includes discography.