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Nick Travis

Nick Travis was an American jazz trumpeter. He was from the Olney section of Philadelphia

Travis started playing professionally at age 15, playing in the early 1940s with Johnny McGhee, Vido Musso (1942), Mitch Ayres, and Woody Herman (1942–44). In 1944 he joined the military; after his service he played with Ray McKinley (1946–50, intermittent), Benny Goodman (1948–49), Gene Krupa, Ina Ray Hutton, Tommy Dorsey, Tex Beneke, Herman once more (1950–51), Jerry Gray, Bob Chester, Elliot Lawrence, and Jimmy Dorsey (1952–53). From 1953-56 he was a soloist in the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra. After this he became a session musician for NBC, but played with Gerry Mulligan (1960–62) and Thelonious Monk (1963, at Lincoln Center).

Most of Travis's work was in big bands, but he also played in small ensembles with Al Cohn (1953) and Zoot Sims (1956). He led one session for Victor Records in 1954.

In 1964, Travis died at age 38 as a result of complications from ulcers.

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Nick Travis: A New York Studio Jazzman

Read "Nick Travis: A New York Studio Jazzman" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci


It may well be that in the world of the Internet, no one is ever truly forgotten. That's obviously true of people commonly known as “the great and the good." Yet even in the more obscure branches of human endeavor, the principle holds. Nowhere, more so, it seems, than in music, and even in jazz, the taste of a distinct minority. Especially in jazz, apparently, seek and you shall find, somewhere, sooner or later. This is the historian's ...

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Rare Nick Travis Performance

Rare Nick Travis Performance

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey

Nick Travis (1925-1964) played trumpet in a variety of big bands including those of Woody Herman, Ray McKinley, Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, Ina Ray Hutton and Jerry Wald; all of those in the 1940s. The list got longer in the ‘50s, when he worked with Herman again, and with Jerry Gray, Bob Chester, Elliott Lawrence, Jimmy Dorsey, the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra and Maynard Ferguson’s Birdland Dream Band. Travis was active in New York studios in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s ...

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Nick Travis: The Panic is On

Nick Travis: The Panic is On

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

You could say that trumpeter Nick Travis was the East Coast  Don Fagerquist. Blowing with a warm tone and lyrical style, Travis could swing. And like Fagerquist, Travis was always busy in the studios. Though he died at age 38 in 1964, he was on 350 jazz recording sessions, which is quite a significant number over roughly 20 years. Fagerquist, who started at about the same time as Travis in the early '40s and played until the late '60s, was ...

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