Biography
Dick Vance earned recognition as a skilled trumpeter whose recorded solos remained relatively scarce. Born and raised in Cleveland, he began on violin before turning to trumpet after only a brief time. His early professional work included a stint in J. Frank Terry’s Cleveland ensemble, followed by membership in the little-known orchestra led by Lil Armstrong from 1934 to 1935. After relocating to New York he performed with Willie Bryant and Kaiser Marshall before joining Fletcher Henderson’s Orchestra in 1936, where he served as lead trumpeter and occasional vocalist through 1938. In 1939 Vance entered Chick Webb’s Big Band, remaining with the group for several years after Ella Fitzgerald assumed leadership following Webb’s death and contributing many of its arrangements. Subsequent engagements took him through bands fronted by Charlie Barnet, Don Redman, Eddie Heywood’s Sextet between 1944 and 1945, and Ben Webster, among others. Between 1944 and 1947 he studied at Juilliard Institute while also working in theater pit orchestras for decades and supplying arrangements to ensembles directed by Duke Ellington, Harry James, Cab Calloway, and Earl Hines. He participated in Fletcher Henderson’s final Sextet in 1950, spent 1951–1952 with Duke Ellington—where he prepared most of the material for the album Ellington ’55—and toured with Don Redman in 1953. Throughout the 1950s he appeared regularly at the Savoy Ballroom. In 1969 Vance traveled to Europe alongside Eddie Barefield. Across his career he led just two little-known albums, one issued by Sue in 1962 and the other by Strand in the mid-1960s.