JazzSnaps: Randy Brooks (1946)

Randy Brooks played trumpet like Harry James. Lots of pep and power with plenty of bent notes. Brooks recorded with Hal Kemp in the late 1930s, Claude Thornhill in '42 and Les Brown in '43 and '44. In 1945, Brooks formed a band that included tenor saxophonist Stan Getz and Getz's vocalist wife Beverly Byrne. The band recorded until 1947, the year of one of Brooks' biggest hits, Tenderly. But swing was his thing at a time when fans were going for bop.

By the end of the decade, according to Wikipedia, Brooks married bandleader Ina Ray Hutton and moved to Los Angeles, where he suffered a stroke and was unable to continue as a musician. He died of smoke inhalation in a fire at his Sanford, Maine, apartment in 1967.

These snapshots come from Betty's fabulous collection  of photos, sent along by her friend Chris. The middle image is likely from February 1946, when the Brooks band went int the Adams Theater in Newark, N.J. The other two seem as though they were taken later in the year, when the weather was warmer.

Betty [pictured with Brooks above] has donated all of her prints, including these, to Rutgers University's Institute of Jazz Studies. But since she and Chris also are big JazzWax readers, they wanted you to see them, too.

More JazzSnaps: Go to the right-hand column of JazzWax and scroll down to “JazzSnaps" for links.

JazzWax clip: Here's Randy Brooks' Tenderly from 1947...