Randy Brooks

Randy Brooks endured an unfortunate sequence of events later in life following only a brief interval of recognition. A capable swing-oriented trumpeter who began playing the instrument at age six, he acquired early professional seasoning by performing with Rudy Vallee and touring alongside the singer for two years beginning when Brooks himself was eleven. Further work followed with Claude Thornhill, Bob Allen, and Art Jarrett's Orchestra, the ensemble assembled after Hal Kemp's death, before he joined Les Brown's Big Band in 1944. Influenced by Harry James, Brooks formed his own orchestra late that same year, precisely as the swing era wound down. Despite unfavorable conditions, the group achieved modest success from 1945 through 1947. John Benson Brooks supplied several arrangements, and although most sidemen have since faded from view, the young Stan Getz spent a brief period with the band in 1946. Recordings for Decca yielded the hits "Tenderly," "Harlem Nocturne," and "The Man With The Horn," yet the orchestra eventually dissolved like nearly every other jazz ensemble of the period. After marrying fellow bandleader Ina Ray Hutton and moving to Los Angeles, further misfortune arrived when a severe stroke in the late 1940s terminated his career, and he died in a fire in 1967. Largely overlooked today, his generally rewarding discs remain mostly out of print, an outcome Randy Brooks did not merit.