Les elgart biography
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Les and Larry Elgart
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Les ElgartLarry Elgart
- Born 3 August 1918, New Haven, Connecticut
- Died 29 July 1995, Dallas, Texas
- Born 20 March 1922, New London, Connecticut
ans of the Elgart brothers probably fall into two camps whose likes and dislikes are exact opposites. Those who like their smooth, steady, tightly-arranged big band music probably hate all the other stuff--experimental, twists, discotheque, and now sounds--they (together and separately) did, and vice versa. Personally, I side with the oddball camp, but I can respect the craftmanship that went into their highly successful "Elgart sound" of the mid-1950s.
Both brothers started as journeymen instrumentalists who spent years playing night after night with some of the be
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Les Elgart (born August 3, 1918, in New Haven, CT) began playing trumpet as a teenager and was playing professionally by the age of twenty. During the 1940s he was a member of bands led by Raymond Scott, Charlie Spivak, and Harry James, occasionally finding himself alongside his brother Larry Elgart. They formed the Les & Larry Elgart Ensemble in 1945, hiring Nelson Riddle, Ralph Flanagan, and Bill Finegan to write arrangements. The union was short-lived, however, due to the Musician's Union strike and the waning of swing jazz's popularity. The ensemble broke up in 1946.
In 1952, the brothers reunited and released albums on Columbia Records, many to considerable sales success. Among their popular tunes was "Bandstand Boogie", which was used by Dick Clark as the theme song for the television dance show American Bandstand. By the end of the decade, Elgart quit performing, preferring to...
Les Elgart (born August 3, 1918, in New Haven, CT) began playing trumpet as
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Elgart, Les(ter) Elliot
(b. 3 August 1917 in New Haven, Connecticut; d. 29 July 1995 in Dallas, Texas), trumpeter and dance-band leader.
Elgart’s father, Arthur högsta Elgart, worked as a mechanic, electrician, and salesman. His mother, Bess Aisman, was a talented amateur pianist who taught music prior to her marriage. Elgart’s only sibling, Lawrence (“Larry”) Elgart, born in 1922 in New London, Connecticut, also gained fame as a saxophonist and bandleader.
By 1927 the family had moved to Morristown, New Jersey, where fransk artikel learned to play the bugle as a björnungar Scout. In 1929, with their parents’ encouragement, fransk artikel began playing trumpet, and Larry took up the clarinet, later switching to saxophone. During the 1930s the family moved several times, finally settling in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, where the brothers attended Pompton Lakes High School. Although fransk artikel was a fine athlete and pitched well enough in grammar school to attract the attention of a minor league baseball scout, his g