Biography
Wingy Manone stood out as a skilled Dixieland trumpeter whose jivey vocals earned wide appeal and carried a faint echo of his peer Louis Prima. A streetcar mishap at age ten cost him his right arm, yet he never projected any limitation onstage, thanks to an artificial limb he handled with ease—one that prompted Joe Venuti to present him with a single cuff link one Christmas. He first took up trumpet on riverboats at seventeen, later joined the Crescent City Jazzers in Alabama (a unit that eventually became the Arcadian Serenaders), and cut his debut recordings with them in the mid-1920s. Throughout those years he circulated among numerous territory bands before stepping out as a leader for sessions in New Orleans in 1927. Chicago drew him the next year; soon afterward he shifted to New York and traveled with various theater productions. The 1930 release “Tar Paper Stomp” contained a riff that later supplied the foundation for “In the Mood.” Steady studio work began in 1934, and the 1935 hit “The Isle of Capri” turned him into a major draw. Between 1935 and 1941 his dates included Matty Matlock, Eddie Miller, Bud Freeman, Jack Teagarden, Joe Marsala, George Brunies, Brad Gowans, and Chu Berry. He appeared in the 1940 Bing Crosby picture Rhythm on the River, published the humorous memoir Trumpet on the Wing in 1948, and subsequently sat in on many of Crosby’s radio broadcasts. Manone made his home in Las Vegas from 1954 until his death, staying active almost to the end even though his only full album after 1960 was the 1966 Storyville date.
Albums
