Louis Raphael Mucci (December 13, 1909,

Syracuse, New York Syracuse ( ) is a City (New York), city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, Onondaga County, New York, United States. It is the fifth-most populous city in the state of New York following New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffa ...

- January 4, 2000) was an American

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

trumpeter. Mucci began as a

baritone horn The baritone horn, or sometimes just called baritone, is a low-pitched brass instrument in the saxhorn family.Robert Donington, "The Instruments of Music", (pp. 113ff ''The Family of Bugles'') 2nd ed., Methuen, London, 1962 It is a piston-val ...

player and was appearing in professional settings by the time he was ten years old. As a teenager he switched to trumpet and worked in the late 1930s with

Mildred Bailey Mildred Bailey (born Mildred Rinker; February 27, 1907 – December 12, 1951) was a Native American jazz singer during the 1930s, known as "The Queen of Swing", "The Rockin' Chair Lady" and "Mrs. Swing". She recorded the songs " For Sentimenta ...

and

Red Norvo Red Norvo (born Kenneth Norville; March 31, 1908 – April 6, 1999) was an American musician, one of jazz's early vibraphonists, known as "Mr. Swing". He helped establish the xylophone, marimba, and vibraphone as jazz instruments. His reco ...

before joining

Glenn Miller Alton Glen Miller (March 1, 1904 – December 15, 1944) was an American big band founder, owner, conductor, composer, arranger, trombone player and recording artist before and during World War II, when he was an officer in the United States Arm ...

's ensemble in 1938-1939. During World War II he played in the bands of

Bob Chester Bob Chester (March 20, 1908 – October 29, 1966) was an American jazz and pop music bandleader and tenor saxophonist. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, United States. Chester's stepfather ran General Motors's Fisher Body Works. He began his car ...

Hal McIntyre Hal McIntyre (born Harold William McIntyre; November 29, 1914, Cromwell, Connecticut – May 5, 1959 Los Angeles, California) was an American saxophonist, clarinetist, and bandleader. McIntyre played extensively as a teenager and led his ow ...

Claude Thornhill Claude Thornhill (August 10, 1908 – July 1, 1965) was an American pianist, arranger, composer, and bandleader. He composed the jazz and pop standards "Snowfall" and "I Wish I Had You". Early years Thornhill was the son of J. Chester Thornhill ...

, and

Benny Goodman Benjamin David Goodman (May 30, 1909 – June 13, 1986) was an American clarinetist and bandleader known as the "King of Swing". From 1936 until the mid-1940s, Goodman led one of the most popular swing big bands in the United States. His co ...

. In the first half of the 1950s he worked as a house musician for

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...

and also recorded with

Buddy DeFranco Boniface Ferdinand Leonard "Buddy" DeFranco (February 17, 1923 – December 24, 2014) was an Italian-American jazz clarinetist. In addition to his work as a bandleader, DeFranco led the Glenn Miller Orchestra for almost a decade in the 1960s and ...

and

Artie Shaw Artie Shaw (born Arthur Jacob Arshawsky; May 23, 1910 – December 30, 2004) was an American clarinetist, composer, bandleader, actor and author of both fiction and non-fiction. Widely regarded as "one of jazz's finest clarinetists", Shaw led ...

; later in the decade he worked with

Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...

Helen Merrill Helen Merrill (born Jelena Ana Milcetic; July 21, 1930) is an American jazz vocalist. Her first album, the eponymous 1954 recording ''Helen Merrill'' (with Clifford Brown), was an immediate success and associated her with the first generation ...

, and

John LaPorta John Daniel LaPorta (April 13, 1920 – May 12, 2004) was a jazz clarinetist and composer. Early life and education A native of Philadelphia, LaPorta started playing clarinet at the age of nine and studied at the Mastbaum School in Philadelphia, ...

. His association with Davis lasted into the early 1960s; he also played with

Kenny Burrell Kenneth Earl Burrell (born July 31, 1931) is an American jazz guitarist known for his work on numerous top jazz labels: Prestige, Blue Note, Verve, CTI, Muse, and Concord. His collaborations with Jimmy Smith were notable, and produced the 1965 ...

in 1964.

References

*"Lou Mucci". '' The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz''. 2nd edition, ed.

Barry Kernfeld Barry Dean Kernfeld (born August 11, 1950) is an American musicologist and jazz saxophonist who has researched and published extensively about the history of jazz and the biographies of its musicians. Education In 1968, Kernfeld enrolled at U ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Mucci, Lou 1909 births 2000 deaths American jazz trumpeters American male trumpeters Musicians from New York (state) 20th-century trumpeters 20th-century American male musicians American male jazz musicians Glenn Miller Orchestra members