Harry Roy Gozzard (March 5, 1916 – January 11, 1995) was a Canadian-American jazz trumpeter. He first performed with Sam Donahue. (In an article written by Mike Zirpolo, for Swing and Beyond, Donahue was described as "a superlative tenor saxophone soloist.") Other members of Donahue's band included the former The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson bandleader Doc Severinsen, 1946 Esquire Award winner for Best New Female Vocalist Frances Wayne, Grammy Award-winning vocalist and actress Jo Stafford and popular music arranger Leo Reisman.
While he was with the Donahue band, Gozzard performed a few times with legendary piano-playing bandleader Count Basie. Basie was featured on four Donahue Okeh recordings made in New York on December 26, 1940. In Count Basie: A Bio-Discography, Chris Sheridan stated, "on Boxing Day, Basie flew to New York to guest on a Sam Donahue date."
In William F. Lee's book, American Big Bands, he mentioned that Gozzard was a sideman in the Sonny Burke Orchestra in the early 1940s. They performed at the famous Roseland Ballroom in New York. (Lady Gaga was the last one to perform there before it closed its doors in 2014. The online newspaper Curbed mentioned in an article that the site was redeveloped into a 62-story, luxury apartment building.) At the time, Burke's band recorded for Decca, Okeh and Vocalion. Gozzard was a part of at least 16 recordings with Burke's band. (In 1938, Donahue went to work with Gene Krupa. Instead of disbanding his orchestra, Donahue turned over the leadership position to Sonny Burke. Around that time, John Hammond, encouraged Burke to bring the band to New York. George T. Simon stated in his book, The Big Bands, that Burke "brought his young Detroiters to New York, rehearsed them, helped support them and eventually landed an engagement at the Roseland in Brooklyn plus an Okeh recording contract." Hammond was instrumental in igniting several musical careers, including those of Count Basie, Bob Dylan, Harry James, Bruce Springsteen, Benny Goodman, Aretha Franklin and others.)
Early life The youngest of Charlotte (née Campbell) and William Gozzard's four children, Harry Gozzard was born in Shelburne, Ontario, Canada, on March 5, 1916. His three older siblings, Margaret "Bessie" Gozzard Pulis (May 6, 1912 – May 24, 1998), William Leonard Gozzard and Kathleen Mary Gozzard Costigan, were also born in Shelburne. Gozzard's ancestors originated in England, Scotland and Ireland. His grandmother migrated to Canada from Ireland during the Great Famine of the 1840s. He, his parents and the other siblings migrated to Detroit, Michigan in 1924.
In 1949, Gozzard met a Kentucky-born woman named Wilda Crager. They married in 1952. Their eldest child, Michael (April 11, 1948 – April 18, 2017), taught at Hesser College and was also a high school guidance counselor at a New England high school.
Career 1930s – 40s: Sam Donahue, Sonny Burke and Jan Savitt Sam Donahue formed his first band in the mid-thirties. At the time, he was just 15 years old. He led that band for five years. Gozzard, who was very young himself at the time, was a part of that Detroit band. It is unclear, however, if he was an original member.
Donahue turned over the leadership position to Sonny Burke in 1938 when he went to work for Gene Krupa. After two years working with Krupa, Donahue then went to work for both Harry James and Benny Goodman in 1940.
At some point in 1940, Donahue resumed as bandleader of his original band. They "played key eastern locations, including the Glen Island Casino and Frank Dailey's Meadowbrook [Ballroom]." Many artists made their names at Glen Island. The Glenn Miller Orchestra was given its big break when they were chosen to play the 1939 summer season at that prestigious venue.
As depicted in the movie The Glenn Miller Story, Si (Simon) Shribman, "a Boston-based operator who...owned a string of ballrooms all over New England," offered Miller the opportunity to perform at his State Ballroom. In an August 1942 issue, Billboard stated that "Shribman currently has Sam Donahue" booked "at Glen Island Casino." (In an article about Sam Donahue's Navy band, Jazz journalist, Lynn René Bayley, posted a photograph of him and Glenn Miller shaking hands while both were in the service during World War II.) Jack Madden was the last bandleader that Gozzard worked for. Madden "replaced Glenn Miller in the Ray Noble band in 1938 when it toured the British Isles." Miller left Noble's band to start his own.
Donahue and his orchestra performed at other popular venues across the U.S. An article in Billboard stated that they played a six-week engagement at the Casa Manana night club in Culver City, California, in the latter part of 1942, followed by another six-week engagement at the Hollywood Casino in Hollywood, California. Prior to that West Coast tour, they performed at Coral Gables in East Lansing, Michigan, Roseland-State Ballroom in Boston, Blue Gardens in Armonk, New York and Beach Point Club in Mamaroneck, New York. Blue Gardens (and perhaps the other venues, too) was broadcast live on the radio.
The Complete History of the Big Bands stated that Donahue’s band “was one of the best bands in the country. Its brief success was interrupted by Donahue’s enlistment in the U.S. Navy after Pearl Harbor.”
Donahue was represented by William Morris Agency, a Hollywood-based talent agency that represented some of the best-known 20th-century entertainers in film, television, and music. It is unclear if the representation covered the band members, too.
During his years in Donahue's band, Gozzard took part in a recording known as Beat the Band to the Bar. It is a collection of songs recorded between 1930–1954. Allmusic described it as a "sampler of irreverent hot novelties, jazz burlesques, and big-band sendups." Many prominent jazz musicians performed on that album...Sam Donahue, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Guy Lombardo, Woody Herman, Count Basie, Artie Shaw, Rudy Vallée, Hoagy Carmichael, Charlie Barnet, Ozzie Nelson and many more.
At the young age of 25, Gozzard (in Donahue's band) performed in a series of recordings for Bluebird Records. Founded in 1932 by Eli Oberstein, Bluebird was a RCA Victor subsidiary label best known for their low-cost releases. They eventually became known for the "Bluebird sound," which directly influenced rhythm and blues as well as early rock and roll.
Oberstein pioneered the practice of payola, a term used in the music industry to describe the illegal practice of paying commercial radio stations to play songs without the stations disclosing the payments. (Payola can greatly influence a song's perceived popularity.) Oberstein was suddenly and unexpectedly fired in 1939 by RCA Victor. Since no explanation was ever given regarding his firing, one is left to wonder if the reason might have been directly related to his underhanded dealings with radio stations.
In an article written for Swing and Beyond, Walsh University music teacher Dennis Roden made “insightful observations” regarding Flo-Flo, a song written by Ralph Burns and in “the repertoire of the Donahue band.” Roden mentioned two trumpet solos performed by Gozzard, one of which had a “swashbuckling feel to it.”
During his career, Gozzard was mentioned in a few different articles in DownBeat magazine. He appeared in a revealing photo in one of those articles (November 15, 1940) that was rather intriguing. While staring at a newspaper, he had his arm around the lovely vocalist Lynne Sherman, who was also looking at the same paper at the time. In fact, the entire Sonny Burke Orchestra had their eyes affixed to that paper, because it had a list of men who had recently been selected in the draft. (Even though World War II had already begun the previous year, the United States would not officially get involved in it until one year later, on December 8, 1941.)
That particular photographic pose doesn't necessarily reveal that Gozzard and Sherman were in some sort of personal relationship, but it does arouse a certain measure of curiosity to find out whether or not they were, especially since Sherman married another trumpet player the following year, Milton Ebbins. (They were married for 67 years. Ebbins had an illustrious career in show business and was also an insider in the Kennedy administration.)
Gozzard, along with Sherman and the other members of Burke's orchestra, performed together during the recording of the Vocalion record If It Wasn't For The Moon. An article in The Tampa Tribune mentioned the new record release of If It Wasn't For The Moon and the flip-side song Easy Does It, stating, "Harry Gozzard's trumpet reaches way up to here against the harmonious saxophone choir background in the rhythmic Easy Does It and the moon song bounces along nicely with Lynne Sherman performing the lyric, but good." A photo of Lynne Sherman also appeared in another DownBeat issue, September 15, 1940. The caption reads, "Sony Burke, who reviews his band at left, with chirper Lynne Sherman, a Boston chick. Both are heard, with Burke's band, on Okeh records. The combo is from Detroit..." The theme song for Burke's orchestra was Blue Sonata.
It was stated in a caption of a photo archived in the Library of Congress that Sam Donahue and his orchestra were booked together with Lionel Hampton and his orchestra at the Aquarium in New York in 1946. The individuals in charge of the event scheduled Donahue and his orchestra to perform in the afternoons. However, the aquarium was not open in the afternoon, so, during one of those workless afternoon sessions, Donahue and his orchestra ended up lovingly playing to an audience of one, a kitty named Hep.
A jazz record company and label founded almost 30 years later in Edinburgh, Scotland, is named Hep Records. They began as a reissue label for material from radio transcription discs, mainly big band music from the 1940s. Sam Donahue material was reissued by Hep Records. Sam Donahue And His Orchestra – Hollywood Hop is one of the reissues. Gozzard is listed as one of the instrumentalists for tracks 1–11 on that CD.
Singer and saxophonist Tex Beneke, best known for the popular songs Chattanooga Choo Choo, I've Got a Gal in Kalamazoo, Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree and Jukebox Saturday Night, traveled in 1938 to Gozzard's and Donahue's hometown of Detroit. There, Donahue heard him and mentioned him to his then-boss Gene Krupa. Not able to hire a new member at the time, Krupa referred Beneke to Glenn Miller who was putting together a new band. Beneke joined Miller's new band.
It is mentioned in the IMDb bio of Sam Donahue and also in an UPROXX article that Frank Sinatra Jr. was a vocalist for Donahue. According to a DownBeat article, "he began performing in his mid-teens for the Sam Donahue band." Sinatra later mentioned that the majority of what he learned about singing was learned through the time he spent with Donahue and the other musicians in the band. Incidentally, Sinatra Jr. was kidnapped in Lake Tahoe while on tour with Donahue. His father Frank Sinatra paid the $240,000 ransom which ultimately led to his son's release from the kidnappers.
The Sam Donahue band had several top-10 hits: Dinah, Put That Kiss Back Where You Found It, My Melancholy Baby, The Whistler, I Never Knew, Just The Other Day, Red Wing and A Rainy Night In Rio. They are some of the songs that make up The Sam Donahue Collection – 1940–1948. Gozzard is included in the credits of that collection. I'll Never Tire of You, a 1941 recording that Gozzard played trumpet in, is featured in that collection. Acrobat Records is the label name. Marketing and distribution for the album was handled by Arista Records. An article in Jazz Journal featured that reissue album; which has a majority of Donahue's songs from the 1940s, many of which, Gozzard performed in. Online music database AllMusic also highlighted that album on their website.