Biography
Harold Arnold stood among jazz’s most admired practitioners, yet his decision late in life to favor steady daytime work and family responsibilities over constant performing and sessions consigned him to little more than a passing reference in jazz chronicles. Raised in Cleveland’s Central neighborhood, he attended the since-closed Central High School, an institution that launched the careers of numerous jazz notables such as Noble Sissle, Freddy Webster, Tadd Dameron, Andy Anderson, Bull Moose Jackson, Ernie Freeman, Shep Shepherd, Chick McKinney, Willie Smith, and Fats Heard. Initially taking up piano, he changed to saxophone while still at the school. Born Harold Dixon Arnold in 1912, he began his professional career in 1933, spending the next four years performing at carnivals and aboard Mississippi riverboats. He later moved to New York alongside Columbus trumpeter Harry “Sweets” Edison, whom he had met during one of Edison’s Cleveland engagements. The two musicians joined Lucky Millinder’s Mills Blue Rhythm Band and quickly established reputations within that ensemble. Arnold performed or recorded, and in some cases both, alongside Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Charlie Shavers, Henry “Red” Allen & His New York Orchestra, Billy Kyle, Wilbur DeParis, and Carmen Newsome, another Central High alumnus, as well as additional artists. He fronted several small groups of his own and, in 1958, directed the young Quincy Jones on the Jazz ’Round Midnight album without participating as a player. Returning to Cleveland, he took positions with the post office and as a security guard at Harry E. Davis Jr. High, eventually settling in the suburb of Woodmere and retiring in 1977. He retained his affiliation with the Cleveland Federation of Musicians and played with the Townsmen, a long-running local ensemble whose roster has included dozens of musicians across more than five decades. His final notable recording appearance came in 1980 on blues veteran Robert Lockwood Jr.’s album Hangin’ On. After the death of his wife Beatrice in 1992, Arnold died on May 2, 2002, at Heather Hill Nursing Home in Chardon, Ohio, at the age of ninety.