Biography
During the mid-1940s Ormond Downes shared drumming duties in Spike Jones and the City Slickers with Gilbert Royce, better known as Giggie Royce, whose scant additional musical work makes the source of his nickname puzzling. Downes handled the kit for Jones's inventive deconstruction of the "Nutcracker Suite," confirming his command of written charts. His adaptability kept him busy across styles, whether laying down cowboy numbers beside Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers, delivering polished swing behind Judy Garland, or powering big-band jazz during Kay Kyser's so-called middle period, when the leader changed personnel as casually as he replaced parking-lot attendants. After leaving the Slickers, Downes joined Chicago's lively jazz circles in the 1950s, where he mingled with a loose collective of players that included songwriter Johnny Mercer, George Barnes, Floyd Bean, Boyce Brown, Bobby Hackett, Rosy McMargue, Jimmy McPartland, and Joe Rushton. He later appeared in the group led by Red Ingles, one of Spike Jones's most accomplished former sidemen. Ingles headed one of several splinter bands that emerged from the City Slickers, each seeking to benefit from labels eager to link new releases to Jones's proven market appeal.