Jazz cornetist, bandleader, and composer Red Nichols was born Ernest Nichols on
May 8, 1905, in Ogden, Utah. A child prodigy, at the age of 12, he was playing
complicated pieces for his father’s brass band. Influenced by the Original
Dixieland Jazz Band and Bix Beiderbecke, he moved to the Midwest in the early
1920s and played with bands such as the Syncopating Seven and the Johnny Johnson
Orchestra before ending up in New York City in 1923. There, he and trombonist
Miff Mole formed a partnership that would last a decade. By 1926, the duo had
formed Red Nichols and his Five Penni...