Birth name Joe Marsala Name Joe Marsala Genres Dixieland, Swing music Siblings Marty Marsala | Occupation(s) Clarinetist Albums Tiger Rag Role Clarinetist | |
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Born January 4, 1907 ( 1907-01-04 ) Associated acts Joe Marsala And His Chosen SevenJoe Marsala And His Delta Four Similar People Buddy Rich, George Wettling, Bud Freeman, Carmen Mastren, Jack Teagarden | ||
My melancholy baby joe marsala sextet 1945
Joe Marsala (January 4, 1907 – March 4, 1978) was an Italian-American jazz clarinetist and songwriter. His younger brother was trumpeter Marty Marsala and he was married to jazz harpist Adele Girard.
Contents
- My melancholy baby joe marsala sextet 1945
- Joe marsala delta six feather bed lament hq
- Music career
- References
Joe marsala delta six feather bed lament hq
Music career
In the 1920s, Marsala played guitar in clubs in his hometown of Chicago with Ben Pollack and Wingy Manone. After moving to New York City, he recorded and performed with Manone in the 1930s. As a leader, he worked with drummers Buddy Rich, Shelly Manne, and Dave Tough; guitarist Eddie Condon, pianist Joe Bushkin, trumpeter Max Kaminsky, his brother Marty Marsala, and his wife, jazz harpist Adele Girard. In 1948 he left professional performing and entered music publishing.
By 1949 he was writing traditional pop songs, "Don't Cry, Joe (Let Her Go, Let Her Go, Let Her Go)", which waas recorded by Frank Sinatra. The song led friends to the unfounded fear his marriage was over when in fact it was written for GIs who had returned home from World War II to find that their girlfriends had married someone else. He wrote "And So to Sleep Again" with Sunny Skylar and it was recorded by Patti Page in 1951.
Marsala taught clarinet to Bobby Gordon, the son of Jack Gordon, who worked for RCA Records. Marsala became Gordon's mentor and produced his records for Decca, including "Warm and Sentimental" and "Young Man's Fancy". Arbors Records released Bobby Gordon Plays Joe Marsala, Lower Register in 2007 and The Bobby Gordon Quartet Featuring Adele Girard Marsala, Don't Let It End, which featured Adele's last session for Arbors in 1992.
According to his wife, Marsala suffered from an allergy to nickel and had a rash on his hands from the nickel-plated keys on the clarinet. He was also bothered by colitis and was unable to drink alcohol for a time. Although his younger brother Marty was drafted, Marsala was an unacceptable candidate because of cartilage and ligament tears in his knee. He and his wife entertained stateside for the USO during the war years. Marsala died of cancer in Santa Barbara, California at the age of 71.