Songer, Wayne E.

Multi-reed musician whose earliest recording appears to be 1939’s Nothing but Notes, by Joe Venuti and His Orchestra. (Wayne played alto sax.)

In 1949, he appeared with Louis Armstrong and Gordon Jenkins in and went on to record with Satchmo, as well as Lena Horne and Frank Sinatra, in the 1950s. Gordon was the arranger and conductor on 1957’s Where Are You?, which featured Wayne on clarinet. He also collaborated with Bob Scobey on Beauty and the Beat and eventually became a staple on The Jack Benny Show. Other artists with whom he worked include Ella Fitgerald, Judy Garland, Billy May, Red Nichols, and Claude Gordon’s Orchestra, which was voted the top band of Canada and the U.S. in 1959 by the American Federation of Musicians.

In 1963, he was part of an historic radio broadcast at The Hollywood Bowl which marked the last joint appearance by Bobby Hackett and Jack Teagarden. (It was also Jack’s next-to-last concert. He would appear at the Monterey Jazz Festival later that year.) A CD of the broadcast was released in 2006.

Wayne also appears on the anthologies, The Blue Angel Club: Jazz at Pasadena ’69 (Vols. 1 & 2), Blue Angel Jazz Club: Private Jazz Party, and Live at the Cotton Club.

Here he is performing on clarinet with Jack Benny and His Rocky Mountain Boys…

Sources:

Songer, Wayne E.

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