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Georgie Auld

Georgie Auld was a jazz tenor saxophonist, clarinetist, and bandleader. Auld was born John Altwerger in Toronto. He lived in the United States from the late 1920s onward, and was most noteworthy for his work with Bunny Berigan, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Erroll Garner, Dizzy Gillespie, Al Porcino, Billy Eckstine, Tiny Kahn, Frank Rosolino, and many others. Primarily a swing saxophonist, he did many big band stints in his career, and led several big bands, including Georgie Auld and His Orchestra and Georgie Auld and His Hollywood All Stars. Auld also played some rock'n roll working for Alan Freed in 1959. He can be heard playing sax on the 1968 Ella Fitzgerald album 30 by Ella. In 1977 he played a bandleader in the motion picture New York, New York, starring Liza Minnelli and Robert De Niro and also acted as a technical consultant for the film. Georgie Auld is known as one of the first heroinists in jazz history and the habit was widespread his 1940s big bands. He died in Palm Springs, California, aged 70.


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Video / DVD

Georgie Auld: To the Losers

Georgie Auld: To the Losers

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

The last time I wrote about an exceptional tribute album to Frank Sinatra by a jazz artist was in January. The album was Oscar Peterson's A Jazz Portrait of Frank Sinatra, recorded in May 1959. Now I want to hip you to another gem. It's Here's to the Losers, a glorious little-known album by tenor saxophonist Georgie Auld and produced by Jack Tracy for Philips Records in July 1963. While Sinatra isn't named on the cover or the liner notes, ...

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Recording

Georgie Auld: The Tiger Bands

Georgie Auld: The Tiger Bands

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Tenor saxophonist Georgie Auld was a born soloist. By the time he was 20 in 1939, Auld had recorded more solos than musicians twice his age. While in Bunny Berigan's band between 1936 and 1938, Auld had nearly as many solos on records as Berigan himself. Auld also was a standout in Artie Shaw's orchestra between 1938 and 1939. Later that year, he started the first of his many bands and recorded for the first time as a leader in ...

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Interview

Georgie Auld in the Late '40s

Georgie Auld in the Late '40s

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Georgie Auld should be better known today, but he isn't. In his prime, he was a furiously swinging tenor saxophonist and leader of some pretty hip bop bands of the '40s. Today, the late reedman is probably best known for appearing in Martin Scorsese's New York, New York (1977) as bandleader Frankie Harte, working as a consultant to help Robert De Niro with his sax fingering and dubbing all the sax solos. That is, if you remember this marginal film. ...

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