Biography
It is possible that Frank Guarente holds the distinction of being the earliest non-native-born musician to make a significant mark as both a jazz performer and innovator within America. His uniqueness stems particularly from outstanding proficiency not only in trumpet playing, composing, and bandleading but also from having observed and contributed to the evolution of jazz in New Orleans and New York alongside the commercial music environment of the 1930s. Solid indications exist that Joe "King" Oliver, Freddie Keppard, and Nick LaRocca shaped Guarente's approach, with him offering his expertise in "legitimate" music in exchange. Indications likewise suggest Frank Guarente shaped Bix Beiderbecke's playing. Furthermore, Guarente participated in the initial influx of American jazz musicians who reached Europe during the middle 1920s.
Francesco Saverio Guarente entered the world on October 5, 1893, at Montemiletto in Southern Italy. He appears to have received formal musical training prior to emigrating to the United States in 1910, where he joined a brother in Allentown, PA. Contemporary accounts place Guarente in Creatore's Band and describe tours of the American South with Don Philippini's Symphony Orchestra; these experiences have been cited as the route by which he reached New Orleans in 1914, although other reports attribute the move to health considerations. Later accounts omit those earlier affiliations yet record that Guarente worked briefly in a bank upon arrival before turning to music full time. He was drawn to the novel ragtime sounds then emerging in New Orleans and presumably found reassurance in the city's sizable Italian community, from which many of the first white jazz musicians also originated.
Guarente became acquainted with Italian-American players such as Nick LaRocca and Tony Parenti, yet his most striking connection was with friend Joe "King" Oliver. Oliver demonstrated advanced mute techniques to Guarente, who in turn imparted theoretical knowledge and reading skills. Guarente's command of mutes is evident throughout his recorded work. He earned considerable respect in New Orleans, so that Louis Armstrong still remembered the young Italian trumpeter decades afterward. During his two-year stay Guarente performed with numerous orchestras and brass bands and even directed a group at the historic Tom Anderson's nightspot. By 1916 he was touring Texas as "Ragtime Frank" with the Alabama Five. Following enlistment in the American Army during World War I, he returned briefly to Texas before heading east to Philadelphia, where he joined Charlie Kerr's Orchestra, which then featured fellow Italian Eddie Lang on banjo.
Guarente reached New York City in 1921 and assembled a new ensemble whose members could handle both jazz and written arrangements. Pianist Arthur Schutt, already an accomplished novelty and jazz stylist and forward-looking arranger, and drummer Chauncey Morehouse, later the foundation of the celebrated Jean Goldkette rhythm section, were among those chosen. Society bandleader Paul Specht discovered the unit and absorbed it into his orchestra, an arrangement many regard as the prototype of the "band within a band" later exemplified by Bob Crosby's Bobcats and Tommy Dorsey's Clambake Seven. The group adopted the name the Georgians and produced forty-two notable jazz sides for Columbia beginning in 1922, continuing until shortly after Guarente's exit in 1924.
These recordings form the basis for Frank Guarente's standing as a jazz improviser. His combined musical and leadership abilities led Paul Specht to call him "irreplaceable." Guarente and the Georgians sailed with the Specht band for England in the summer of 1923. The Georgians' strong reception in London and Paris apparently convinced both Specht and Guarente that Europe held genuine prospects. The following May, Guarente returned to Europe, reorganized the Georgians, and toured the Continent, including an obscure session for the Kalophon label in Switzerland. Back in England he performed and recorded with Savoy Orpheans, Rhythmic Eight, and other British dance orchestras managed by entrepreneur Bert Firman. With the Devonshire Dance Orchestra he even cut his old friend Joe Oliver's "Sugar Foot Stomp," recreating the celebrated Oliver trumpet solos. Yet Guarente's European achievements came at a cost: during the four years he had been abroad, jazz had seen the emergence of its first instrumental stars, among them trumpeters Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, and Red Nichols, together with the rise of hot dance orchestras employing refined arrangements under leaders such as Jean Goldkette, Fletcher Henderson, and Duke Ellington. Guarente's style, as captured on his 1928 American recordings, remained unaltered and now seemed dated. His musicianship nonetheless sustained him, enabling a return to sectional work, frequently on lead.
The claim that Frank Guarente influenced Bix Beiderbecke originates in Belgian jazz critic Robert Goffin's writings of the 1940s. Drummer Harl Smith, then with one of Paul Specht's New York units and manager of the midtown Cinderella Ballroom, received a letter in the early 1920s from former colleague Min Leibrook, bassist and tuba player with the pioneering Wolverines. That band, featuring the emerging Beiderbecke, sought a New York booking; Smith added them as a second attraction at the Cinderella to provide continuous music, and the Wolverines created a sensation. When Guarente later reconstituted the Georgians for the European tour, Smith served as drummer. It was in that setting that Smith met Goffin and the assertion of Beiderbecke's debt to Guarente was advanced. The legato phrasing later identified with Beiderbecke already appears in certain Guarente performances, notably the Georgians' "Barney Google," recorded nine months before Beiderbecke's debut sessions. Although many of Goffin's views have been questioned by subsequent authors, Richard Sudhalter's Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contribution to Jazz, 1915-1945 has lent renewed attention to these observations.
Guarente remained active through the 1930s with orchestra leader Victor Young and other prominent attractions, including the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra, Bing Crosby, and the Boswell Sisters, as well as in studio orchestras for network radio broadcasts. In 1937 Tommy Dorsey sought to engage Guarente for his new orchestra, yet by then Guarente's health had deteriorated. Frank Guarente died in New York City on July 21, 1942, at the age of 48.
Francesco Saverio Guarente entered the world on October 5, 1893, at Montemiletto in Southern Italy. He appears to have received formal musical training prior to emigrating to the United States in 1910, where he joined a brother in Allentown, PA. Contemporary accounts place Guarente in Creatore's Band and describe tours of the American South with Don Philippini's Symphony Orchestra; these experiences have been cited as the route by which he reached New Orleans in 1914, although other reports attribute the move to health considerations. Later accounts omit those earlier affiliations yet record that Guarente worked briefly in a bank upon arrival before turning to music full time. He was drawn to the novel ragtime sounds then emerging in New Orleans and presumably found reassurance in the city's sizable Italian community, from which many of the first white jazz musicians also originated.
Guarente became acquainted with Italian-American players such as Nick LaRocca and Tony Parenti, yet his most striking connection was with friend Joe "King" Oliver. Oliver demonstrated advanced mute techniques to Guarente, who in turn imparted theoretical knowledge and reading skills. Guarente's command of mutes is evident throughout his recorded work. He earned considerable respect in New Orleans, so that Louis Armstrong still remembered the young Italian trumpeter decades afterward. During his two-year stay Guarente performed with numerous orchestras and brass bands and even directed a group at the historic Tom Anderson's nightspot. By 1916 he was touring Texas as "Ragtime Frank" with the Alabama Five. Following enlistment in the American Army during World War I, he returned briefly to Texas before heading east to Philadelphia, where he joined Charlie Kerr's Orchestra, which then featured fellow Italian Eddie Lang on banjo.
Guarente reached New York City in 1921 and assembled a new ensemble whose members could handle both jazz and written arrangements. Pianist Arthur Schutt, already an accomplished novelty and jazz stylist and forward-looking arranger, and drummer Chauncey Morehouse, later the foundation of the celebrated Jean Goldkette rhythm section, were among those chosen. Society bandleader Paul Specht discovered the unit and absorbed it into his orchestra, an arrangement many regard as the prototype of the "band within a band" later exemplified by Bob Crosby's Bobcats and Tommy Dorsey's Clambake Seven. The group adopted the name the Georgians and produced forty-two notable jazz sides for Columbia beginning in 1922, continuing until shortly after Guarente's exit in 1924.
These recordings form the basis for Frank Guarente's standing as a jazz improviser. His combined musical and leadership abilities led Paul Specht to call him "irreplaceable." Guarente and the Georgians sailed with the Specht band for England in the summer of 1923. The Georgians' strong reception in London and Paris apparently convinced both Specht and Guarente that Europe held genuine prospects. The following May, Guarente returned to Europe, reorganized the Georgians, and toured the Continent, including an obscure session for the Kalophon label in Switzerland. Back in England he performed and recorded with Savoy Orpheans, Rhythmic Eight, and other British dance orchestras managed by entrepreneur Bert Firman. With the Devonshire Dance Orchestra he even cut his old friend Joe Oliver's "Sugar Foot Stomp," recreating the celebrated Oliver trumpet solos. Yet Guarente's European achievements came at a cost: during the four years he had been abroad, jazz had seen the emergence of its first instrumental stars, among them trumpeters Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, and Red Nichols, together with the rise of hot dance orchestras employing refined arrangements under leaders such as Jean Goldkette, Fletcher Henderson, and Duke Ellington. Guarente's style, as captured on his 1928 American recordings, remained unaltered and now seemed dated. His musicianship nonetheless sustained him, enabling a return to sectional work, frequently on lead.
The claim that Frank Guarente influenced Bix Beiderbecke originates in Belgian jazz critic Robert Goffin's writings of the 1940s. Drummer Harl Smith, then with one of Paul Specht's New York units and manager of the midtown Cinderella Ballroom, received a letter in the early 1920s from former colleague Min Leibrook, bassist and tuba player with the pioneering Wolverines. That band, featuring the emerging Beiderbecke, sought a New York booking; Smith added them as a second attraction at the Cinderella to provide continuous music, and the Wolverines created a sensation. When Guarente later reconstituted the Georgians for the European tour, Smith served as drummer. It was in that setting that Smith met Goffin and the assertion of Beiderbecke's debt to Guarente was advanced. The legato phrasing later identified with Beiderbecke already appears in certain Guarente performances, notably the Georgians' "Barney Google," recorded nine months before Beiderbecke's debut sessions. Although many of Goffin's views have been questioned by subsequent authors, Richard Sudhalter's Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contribution to Jazz, 1915-1945 has lent renewed attention to these observations.
Guarente remained active through the 1930s with orchestra leader Victor Young and other prominent attractions, including the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra, Bing Crosby, and the Boswell Sisters, as well as in studio orchestras for network radio broadcasts. In 1937 Tommy Dorsey sought to engage Guarente for his new orchestra, yet by then Guarente's health had deteriorated. Frank Guarente died in New York City on July 21, 1942, at the age of 48.
Albums
