[Dixielandjazz] More Jazz Musicians who carried Guns.

[Don Ingle]

He was in several bands in the early days that were Kansas City area 
units, and he years later lived in KC and worked for the Civil 
Aeronautics Administration (today's FAA) and was a pilot for many yeara, 
as was my dad. He had an early connection with Kansas City before 
striking on his own and then to Goldkette and Whiteman.
He recruited my dad to go to work for the CAA as an instructor just 
before the was started, when dad had left Weems in California. Dad 
worked at Santa Monica CAA office first then Washington D.C., then left 
CAA to take air force commission doing the same type of work but flunked 
the final eye exam. At 38 he was just old enough to be dropped from the 
draft with the eyes as well, so he joined Spike Jones (1943), and was on 
the first ever USO tour of France after D-Day with that band.
I met Trambauer once when I was sitting in with Red Nichols at Lyman's 
in LA. Red was my mentor and first teacher, and Red asked Tram if he 
knew who that young "kid" playing with the band was. When he told him, 
Tram came up to tell me how much he remembered dad from the Detroit 
days, It was a moment well etched in Memories (I was 20 so it had to be 
'51.)
Tram's son was with the Kansas City Symphony and a top rate professional 
player -- trumpet I seem to recall.
Another player of the Bix-Tram period knocked on the door one day asking 
to see Red. I called dad to meet the visitor, and got the surprise of my 
life. It was Itzie Riskin, fine piano man from both Goldkette and 
Whiteman days and recorded with Bix as well. He had moved fromt he east 
to take a job as a vocal coach with MGM and heard that dad lived in the 
Valley and looked him up. This teen Bixophile sat dropped-jawed as 
Riskin and my dad spun tales of their shared past. It was something a 
then 15-year old also remembers well. Over the years I've  added 
meetings with Paul Mertz, Chauncy Morehouse, Bill Rank, Spiegle Willcox, 
and others from the Detroit and Whiteman bands. One lucky guy in the 
right place, with the right fatherly connections, and a lot of things to 
remember as thoughts are triggered here on the list.


Mike wrote:
> I thought Tram was from Carbondale......Never knew he was a KC man...
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> Mike
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> Don Ingle wrote:
>> Frank Trambauer carried a gun in his music briefcase, my dad related, 
>> in the time both were working for Goldkwette.  He was from Kansas 
>> City and that was still almost a wild west town at the time he was 
>> entered the business and was a rough town. Trumpeter George Rock 
>> carried a colt frontier six shooter in the days when he was on Spike 
>> Jones' band same time my dad was. As for that, dad and I carried 
>> shotguns in the car when on the road in the fall, and on off days we 
>> would go quail and pheasant hunting. The rest of the year we carried 
>> fly rods and fished every trout stream we got a chance to. Made the 
>> road a bit less daunting.
>> Don (I gave up shooting clay pigeons because they're too hard to 
>> clean and taste like mud) Ingle
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>>
>> Steve Barbone wrote:
>>
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