Pee Wee Erwin

George " Pee Wee " Erwin (* May 30, 1913 in Falls City, Nebraska, † June 20, 1981 in Teaneck, New Jersey) was an American jazz trumpeter of Dixieland jazz.

Erwin came from a musical family, learned from 4 years trumpet was heard 8 years old the first time on the radio, played in local bands and 1931-1933 in the band of Joe Haymes and 1933 /4 of the Isham Jones. He then worked in New York as a studio musician. 1934/5 he played with Benny Goodman on the radio, in 1935 with Ray Noble, 1936 again with Goodman ( as successor to Bunny Berigan ) and from 1937 to 1939 with Tommy Dorsey. In the 1940s he twice tried without much success to start his own band ( 1941/42, and 1946). From 1949 and during the 1950s he played Dixieland jazz with her ​​own band in Nick's in Greenwich Village, New York and had in the 1960s, along with Chris Griffin a trumpet school, while otherwise at CBS in television shows such as Carol Burnett and Jackie Gleason much was busy. From 1963 he also had a weekly jazz radio show ( with Ed Joyce ). In the 1970s, he went on a European tour with Warren Covington, his own " King of Jazz" and the " New York Jazz Repertory Company ". Until shortly before his death, he recorded several albums under his own name. He had in 1981 in the Netherlands, his last appearance. In 1987, his autobiography "This Horn for Hire " ( Scarecrow Press ), which he wrote with bassist and jazz journalist Warren Vache Sr., whose son Warren Vache Jr. is also jazz trumpet player and a student of Erwin.

Disco Graphical Notes

• Dr. Jazz Vol 14: Pee Wee Erwin ( Storyville, 1952)
• Complete Fifties Recordings ( Lonehill Records, 1955/1956 )
• Swingin ' That Music ( Jazzology, 1980) with Ike Isaacs