Joey Nash

Born April 12, 1904, Frankie Masters led a prominent big band that scored roughly a dozen hit records across the 1930s and 1940s. An accomplished guitarist and vocalist, he left college in the mid-1920s to assemble a swing orchestra that soon became the resident ensemble at Chicago’s Sherman Hotel College Inn. He joined Victor Records in 1927 and launched his recording career, yet commercial breakthrough arrived only after he moved to Vocalion Records in 1939 and cut “Scatter-Brain,” the song that served as his signature theme and a notable Hit Parade favorite that year. Additional modest successes followed, many showcasing the staggered-chord technique Masters himself termed “bell tone music,” an arranging device that produced his era’s distinctive trademark sound. Throughout most of World War II the ensemble maintained a rigorous touring schedule before ultimately recording for Vogue Records. When the big-band period waned, Masters’ popularity declined, yet he continued performing in clubs and concerts until the late 1970s. He died January 29, 1991.