Ernie Caceres

Ernie Caceres discovered his jazz voice as the sibling of norteño violinist Emilio and trumpet and piano player Pinero. A Rockport, TX native, he launched his career in 1928 by working with various Texas ensembles. He and Emilio later moved first to Detroit and afterward to New York, where the pair earned their living as session musicians. In summer 1938 Caceres entered Bobby Hackett’s group and quickly became one of the city’s most sought-after sidemen. The following year he performed on tenor saxophone with Jack Teagarden before accepting an offer to join Glenn Miller’s orchestra; during his two-year tenure he recorded extensively and appeared in the motion picture Sun Valley Serenade. Aside from a short 1945 stint in the United States Army, Caceres maintained an active recording schedule with Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Ruth Brown, Roy Eldridge, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Hot Lips Page, Frank Sinatra, and Muggsy Spanier while also holding extended positions in bands directed by Tommy Dorsey, Woody Herman, and Eddie Condon. In 1949 he assembled his own quartet, which played regularly at the Hickory Log in New York and made frequent television appearances alongside the Gary Moore Orchestra. After a period with the Billy Butterfield Band in the early 1960s, Caceres returned to Texas in 1964. Four years afterward he reunited with Emilio and began weekend performances at the Landing, a San Antonio nightspot. He kept working until throat cancer claimed him in the early 1970s.