Three Blind Mice – 1950
Red Nichols
Nichols turns a nursery rhyme into jazz
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Cornetist Red Nichols (1905-65) was one of the busiest musicians of the late 1920s/early ‘30s, both in the jazz world with his Five Pennies and on a countless number of studio dates.
After a period off the scene, he made a comeback starting in the mid-to-late 1940s, leading a new Dixieland-flavored version of the Pennies.
He also enjoyed some unexpected success when the Danny Kaye movie The Five Pennies presented in entertaining fashion a semi-fictional account of his life.
From a Snader television transcription in 1950, Nichols leads his later version of the Five Pennies on an inventive version of “Three Blind Mice.”
Nichols is joined by trombonist Jack Kingston, clarinetist Rosie McHargue, pianist Robbie Hammack, the great bass saxophonist Joe Rushton, and drummer Rollie Culver.
-Scott Yanow
