Yank Lawson

John Rhea " Yank " Lawson ( May 3, 1911 in Trenton ( Missouri), † February 18, 1995 in Indianapolis ) was an American jazz trumpeter of Dixieland jazz and swing.

Lawson first played saxophone and piano and played with local bands at the University of Missouri and around Shreveport, Louisiana. He was from 1933 to 1934 in the orchestra of Ben Pollack, 1935 at Will Osborne and in the same year one of the founding members of the " Bob Crosby Orchestra" ( a "Cooperative band", ie all the musicians were involved ). With him and his Bobcats, he also made many recordings in 1935 and 1938. To 1938/39, he played with Tommy Dorsey, 1941/42, (and in many Reunions from the 1950s) again with Bob Crosby and 1942 with Benny Goodman.

He then worked as a studio musician for radio and TV stations and its own Dixieland bands such as the " Lawson - Haggart Band" by Bob Haggart, with whom he recorded in the 1950s. The most important musicians of the band were Lou McGarity (tb ), Cliff Leeman (drums ), Billy Butterfield (tp ) Peanuts Hucko and ( cl ); she specialized in new interpretations of older jazz tracks, such as Jelly Roll 's Jazz, King Oliver 's Jazz. The most successful was the album South of the Mason - Dixon Line of 1953.

In 1957, he took with Louis Armstrong for his " Musical Autobiography " by Decca. In the 1960s he had his own band (1962), he played regularly with Peanuts Hucko at Eddie Condon (in its club in New York from 1964 to 1966 ) and on a Far East tour with Bob Crosby before 1969 with other (Bob Wilber, Bob Haggart and others) founded the the World's Greatest Jazz Band, which had about ten years inventory. Even after Lawson went on playing with Haggart and had until his death in a dominant position in the Dixieland scene.