Red Nichols - Margie (1928) video free download

Ernest Loring "Red" Nichols was born in Ogden, Utah, the son of a music teacher. By the age of 12 he was playing cornet with his father's brass band. He decided to take up the new style of music called jazz after hearing the phonograph records of the Original Dixieland Jass Band.

In 1923 he moved east to perform with a band in Atlantic City, and made New York City his base throughout the 1920s and 1930s. He worked for various bandleaders including Paul Whiteman and Harry Reser, as well as leading his own band, Red Nichols and his Five Pennies. In 1927, his group had a huge hit with the recording of "Ida, Sweet as Apple Cider".

During his Brunswick career (1926-1932) a virtual who's who of great jazz musicians were members of Nichols' studio recording sessions. Other labels he recorded for included Edison (1926), Victor (1927-1928 & 1930 & 1931), Bluebird (1934 & 1939), back to Brunswick for a session in 1934, Variety 1937, and finally OKeh in 1940. In 1942 Nichols moved to California, where he headlined with his own band, as Red Nichols And His Five Pennies, in Los Angeles and San Francisco into the 1950s.

The 1959 Hollywood film "The Five Pennies", starring Danny Kaye, was very loosely based on Nichols' career. Nichols played his own trumpet parts for the film, but did not appear on screen. The Paramount Motion Picture received four Academy Award nominations. "The Five Pennies" movie theme song was composed by Sylvia Fine, the wife of Danny Kaye. Nichols also made a cameo appearance in the biopic "The Gene Krupa Story" the same year. Nichols and his band toured the United States and overseas until Nichols suffered a sudden fatal heart attack in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1965.

In 1986, Red Nichols was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame.