Bill Berry (trumpeter)

Biography

Born in Benton Harbor, Michigan, the son of a bass player in a touring dance band, he spent his early years traveling with his parents; his mother said, "He was on the road when he was only a few months old; he slept in the bass case under the bandstand." From the age of five, he took piano lessons at his parents' home in South Bend, Indiana. In high school in Cincinnati, he switched to trumpet, which he played in a Midwest band led by Don Strickland, then served four years in the Air Force. He studied at the Cincinnati College of Music and Berklee College of Music in Boston and played trumpet with the Woody Herman and Maynard Ferguson orchestra. In 1961, he became one of the Duke Ellington orchestra's first white members.

After his working with Ellington, he played with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra and led his own big band in New York; in 1965 he joined The Merv Griffin Show, where he remained for fifteen years, moving to Los Angeles with Griffin and reforming his group as the L.A. Big Band in 1971. Jack Nimitz, a baritone saxophonist in his band, said "He knew how to get what he wanted out of the band in a very relaxed way — nice and easy, no shouting." Among the most successful of his own recordings was Shortcake (Concord, 1978), an album of jazz for small group in the Ellington style; he appeared on many albums by other musicians, including Rosemary Clooney (Everything's Coming Up Rosie), Scott Hamilton (Scott Hamilton Is a Good Wind Who Is Blowing Us No Ill), Jake Hanna (Live at Concord), and Coleman Hawkins (Wrapped Tight).

As leader

As sideman

With Chris Connor

With Duke Ellington

With The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra

With Maynard Ferguson

With Johnny Hodges

With Herb Pomeroy

With others