Pete Candoli

Pete Candoli, the older of the two trumpet-playing Candoli brothers, first drew wider attention than his sibling through his featured role in Woody Herman’s First Herd during the final years of the swing era. A commanding and theatrical improviser, he reached a memorable highlight near the close of “Apple Honey” by stepping out in a Superman costume and unleashing fiery, harmonically abrasive bursts in the upper register. He joined Sonny Dunham’s band at seventeen, remaining from 1940 to 1941, then moved through the orchestras of Will Bradley, Benny Goodman, Ray McKinley, Tommy Dorsey, Freddie Slack, and Charlie Barnet before settling with Herman from 1944 to 1946. Engagements with Tex Beneke from 1947 to 1949 and Jerry Gray from 1950 to 1951 followed; he then settled in Los Angeles, where studio work absorbed most of his time apart from brief road stints with Les Brown in 1952 and Stan Kenton from 1954 to 1956. Between 1957 and 1962 he co-led a band with Conte, afterward leading his own group and recording under his own name for Columbia, Warner Bros., Kapp, and Somerset. Married at different times to vocalists Betty Hutton and Edie Adams, he partnered with the latter on a 1972 nightclub revue in which he sang, danced, conducted, and played. He continued occasional joint appearances with Conte into the 1990s. Although his public profile remained modest and his technical command had declined by then, he could still generate intense swing-based solos throughout that decade.