Lyrics | Artists | Red Nichols & His Five Pennies

Red Nichols & His Five Pennies

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...