Editing Red Nichols (section)

== Biography ==
=== Early life and career ===
Nichols was born in [[Ogden, Utah]], United States.<ref name="LarkinJazz"/> He was of the [[Mormon]] faith.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.ldsfilm.com/bio/bioN.html | title=Biographies: Latter-day Saint and/Or Utah Film Personalities: N }}</ref> His father was a college music professor, and Nichols was something of a child prodigy, playing difficult set pieces for his father's brass band by the age of 12. Young Nichols heard the early recordings of the [[Original Dixieland Jass Band|Original Dixieland Jazz Band]] and later those of [[Bix Beiderbecke]], and these had a strong influence on him.<ref name="LarkinJazz"/> His style became polished, clean, and incisive.<ref name=Yanow>{{cite book|last1=Yanow|first1=Scott|title=The Trumpet Kings |date=2001|publisher=Backbeat Books |isbn=978-0-87930-640-3|pages=281–282}}</ref>

In the early 1920s, Nichols moved to the Midwest and joined a band called the Syncopating Seven. When that band broke up, he joined the Johnny Johnson Orchestra and went with it to New York City in 1923.<ref name="LarkinJazz"/> In New York, he met trombonist [[Miff Mole]], and the two were inseparable for the next decade. Before signing with Brunswick, Nichols and Mole recorded for [[Perfect Records|Pathé-Perfect]] under the name the Red Heads.

=== Brunswick Records era ===
Nichols could read music and easily gained studio work. In 1926, Mole and he began recording with a variety of bands as Red Nichols and His Five Pennies.<ref name="LarkinJazz"/> Few of these groups were quintets; the name was a pun on "nickel".<ref name="LarkinJazz"/> With the Five Pennies, he recorded more than 100 sides for Brunswick. He also recorded as the Arkansas Travelers, the California Red Heads, the Louisiana Rhythm Kings, [[the Charleston Chasers]], Red and Miff's Stompers, and Miff Mole and His Little Molers. During some weeks in this period, Nichols and his bands were recording 10 to 12 two-sided records.

Nichols' band started with Mole on trombone and [[Jimmy Dorsey]] on alto saxophone and clarinet.<ref name="LarkinJazz"/> Other musicians in his bands in the following decade included [[Benny Goodman]] (clarinet), [[Glenn Miller]] (trombone), [[Jack Teagarden]] (trombone), [[Pee Wee Russell]] (clarinet), [[Joe Venuti]] (violin), [[Eddie Lang]] (banjo and guitar), and [[Gene Krupa]] (drums).<ref name="LarkinJazz"/> The Five Pennies' version of "Ida, Sweet as Apple Cider" was a surprise hit record. It sold over a million copies and was awarded a [[music recording sales certification|gold disc]] by the [[Recording Industry Association of America]].<ref name="The Book of Golden Discs">{{cite book| first=Joseph| last=Murrells| year=1978| title=The Book of Golden Discs| edition=2nd| publisher=Barrie and Jenkins| location=London |page=[https://archive.org/details/bookofgoldendisc00murr/page/136 136]| isbn=0-214-20512-6| url-access=registration| url=https://archive.org/details/bookofgoldendisc00murr/page/136 }}</ref> His composition "Nervous Charlie Stomp" was recorded by one of the top jazz bands of the 1920s, [[Fletcher Henderson]]'s orchestra featuring [[Coleman Hawkins]] on sax, and released as a 78 single.

In the next decade, more structured [[swing music|swing]] eclipsed the improvisational hot jazz Nichols loved to play.<ref name="LarkinJazz"/> He tried to follow the changes and formed a swing band, but his recording career seemed to stall in 1932. Music critic Michael Brooks wrote,

<blockquote>
What went wrong? Part of it was too much, too soon. Much of his vast recorded output was released in Europe, where he was regarded by early jazz critics as the equal, if not the superior, of Louis Armstrong and [[Bix Beiderbecke]]. People who make fools of themselves usually find a scapegoat, and when the critics were exposed to the music of [[Duke Ellington]], [[Benny Carter]], [[Coleman Hawkins]], and others, they turned on Nichols and savaged him, trashing him as unfairly as they had revered him. Nichols' chief fault was an overly stiff, academic approach to jazz trumpet, but he did recognize merit as far as other jazz musicians were concerned and made some wonderful small-group recordings.<ref>Michael Brooks, liner notes to ''Swing Time! The Fabulous Big Band Era 1925–1955''.</ref>
</blockquote>

Other labels Nichols recorded for included [[Edison Records|Edison]] 1926, [[Victor Records|Victor]] 1927, 1928, 1930, 1931 (individual sessions), [[Bluebird Records|Bluebird]] 1934, 1939, back to Brunswick for a session in 1934, [[Variety Records|Variety]] 1937, and [[Okeh Records|OKeh]] in 1940.

=== Later career ===
Nichols survived the Great Depression by playing in show bands and pit orchestras. He led [[Bob Hope]]'s orchestra for a while, moving to California. Nichols married Willa Stutsman, a "stunning" ''[[George White's Scandals]]'' dancer, and they had a daughter. In 1942, their daughter contracted polio, which was misdiagnosed at first as spinal meningitis, and Nichols left [[Glen Gray]] and the [[Casa Loma Orchestra]] to work in the wartime shipyards. On May 2, 1942, Nichols left his band to take an army commission after completing an engagement at Lantz's Merry-Go-Round in Dayton, Ohio.<ref>''Billboard'', May 9, 1942</ref>

Drawn back to music after the war, Nichols formed another Five Pennies band and began playing in small clubs in Los Angeles. Club dates turned into performances at bigger venues, such as the Zebra Room, the Tudor Room of the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, and the Huntington-Sheraton Hotel in Pasadena, California. He toured Europe as a goodwill ambassador for the State Department. Nichols and his band performed in the 1950 film ''[[Quicksand (1950 film)|Quicksand]]'' starring [[Mickey Rooney]]. In 1956, he was the subject of an episode of the television program ''[[This Is Your Life (American franchise)|This Is Your Life]]'' in which he reunited with Miff Mole, [[Phil Harris]], and Jimmy Dorsey, who praised Nichols as a bandleader who ensured everyone was paid.

=== Death ===
In 1965, Nichols took his Five Pennies band to the Mint Hotel in Las Vegas. On June 28, 1965, a few days after he began performing, he had chest pains while he was sleeping. He phoned the front desk, but was dead by the time the ambulance arrived. The band performed as scheduled with a spotlight on Nichols' empty chair.<ref name=Billboard1965>{{cite magazine|title=Red Nichols Dead at 60 |magazine=Billboard |date=July 10, 1965 |volume=77 |issue=28 |page=10 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UykEAAAAMBAJ&q=%22Red+Nichols%22&pg=PA10}}</ref>

=== Biographical film and film career ===
In 1929, he appeared in the [[Vitaphone]] film short (reel #870) with his band the Five Pennies along with [[Eddie Condon]] and [[Pee Wee Russell]].

In 1935, he appeared in the Paramount Pictures film short ''The Parade of the Maestros'' along with [[Ferde Grofe]] performing "In the Middle of a Kiss".

Red Nichols performed in and is also mentioned in the 1950 [[Mickey Rooney]] and [[Jeanne Cagney]] film ''[[Quicksand (1950 film)|Quicksand]]''. Rooney's character asks out Jean Cagney; he asks if she likes "Red Nichols and his outfit?" and she responds, "I think they're great!" They then go to the club to watch Red Nichols and his band perform.

The 1959 [[Hollywood (film industry)|Hollywood]] film ''[[The Five Pennies]]'', the film biography of Red Nichols, starring [[Danny Kaye]] as Red Nichols, was loosely based on Nichols' life and career.<ref name="LarkinJazz"/> Nichols played his own cornet parts for the film and appeared briefly as one of the "Clicquot Club Eskimos" on screen. The [[Paramount Pictures]] movie received four Academy Award nominations. Jazz contemporary [[Louis Armstrong]] also appeared in the film. ''The Five Pennies'' movie theme song and other songs for the film were composed by [[Sylvia Fine]], Danny Kaye's wife.

Nichols also made [[cameo appearance]]s in the 1951 film ''[[Disc Jockey (film)|Disc Jockey]]'' with [[Tommy Dorsey]], and ''[[The Gene Krupa Story]]'' in 1959.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Five Pennies|url=http://www.afi.com/members/catalog/DetailView.aspx?s=&Movie=52880 |website=AFI Catalog of Feature Films|access-date=May 17, 2017}}</ref>

His recording of "Poor Butterfly" is heard in the 1994 [[Woody Allen]] film ''[[Bullets Over Broadway]]'' and his recording of "[[(Back Home Again in) Indiana]]" in Allen's 1999 film ''[[Sweet and Lowdown]]''.