R.I.P..: Pete Candoli

Pete Candoli (b: 28.Jun.1923, Mishawaka/IN; d: 11.Jan.2008, Studio City/CA)

The trumpeter Pete Candoli died January 11th of prostate cancer at his home in Studio City, California, at the age of 84. Candoli was mostly self-taught on trumpet. He played with Woody Herman's First Herd during World War II, then worked mostly as a studio musician from the 1950s but also playing behind singers such as Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Judy Garland or Frank Sinatra. Often he performed together with his younger brother Conte Candoli who also was an acclaimed trumpeter and passed away in 2001 at the age of 74. Both Pete and Conte Candoli took part of the brilliant horn section recruited by João Donato for his "A Bad Donato" album, recorded in 1970 at the A&M Studios, in Los Angeles, for Tommy LiPuma/Bob Krasnow's Blue Thumb label. One of my "desert island" discs, it also features Bud Shank (yes, it's a lie that Bud and Donato had never played together after the 1963 album "Bud Shank and his Brazilian Friends"), Jimmy Cleveland, Ernie Watts, Oscar Castro-Neves, Dom Um Romão, Paulinho Magalhães, Chuck Domanico and many others. "A Bad Donato" has been reissued on CD by the Japanese label Bomba Records in a mini-LP paper sleeve format which reproduces the original gatefold artwork.

Pete Candoli's obituary: Los Angeles Times.