Alvino Rey has died

[Bright Moments]

Alvino Rey, the "king of the steel guitar" has died at age 95.

From Spaceagepop.com:

Alvino Rey

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Born Alvin McBurney, 1 July 1908, Oakland, California

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If all you knew of Alvino Rey was seeing him on the King Family variety show--possibly the only show on television more whitebread than Lawrence Welk's, you'd never guess there was a hep cat's heart beating inside his stolid exterior. But Alvino Rey's is a name to be remembered by exotica fans.

He began performing under his own name, playing guitar with sweet bands like Russ Morgan's, Freddy Martin's, and Horace Heidt's. He became a star of Heidt's band when he began playing the steel guitar, which he later modified and came to call the console guitar. He changed his name to Alvino Rey and struck out on his own in 1939, taking with him Heidt's trio of singing King Sisters, having married Louise King a few years earlier.

In 1942, he reshaped his band, anticipating Stan Kenton with a huge brass section and six saxophones. Although this band quickly failed when the musician's union imposed its recording ban in 1943, included future arrangers Ray Conniff, Neal Hefti, Billy May, and Johnny Mandel. His sax section included Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, and Herbie Stewart, who went on to form 3/4ths of Woody Herman's famous "Four Brothers" line-up. This band did make a couple of quickie musicals for Hollywood, but by the end of 1943, Rey was out of business, working as a mechanic in the Lockheed aircraft factory in Burbank.

He joined the Navy in 1944 and was assigned to lead a service band. After he separated in 1946, he formed another band, which earned a contract with Capitol and placed a few numbers like "Cement Mixer" in the pop charts. He broke up this band around 1950 as the interest in big bands began to fade, and he performed with a smaller combo, mostly in the Southern California area, sometimes with his brother-in-law, Buddy Cole, throughout the 1950s.

In the early 1960s, Rey and the King Sisters put together a concept for a variety show aimed squarely at the middle of the road, featuring lots of patriotic and spiritual numbers, and "The King Family Show" ran for over 5 years. Rey produced a number of albums featuring the sisters and other ensembles from the show. Avoid these LPs at all costs.

For exotica fans, Rey's greatest fame is as one of the pivotal session men of exotica. The other worldly Theremin-like sounds he coaxed from his console guitar were sought out by Esquivel, George Cates, and others. Rey also played alongside Jack Costanzo, Irv Cottler, Emil Richards, and Jimmy Rowles in the Surfmen, a session-man supergroup that recorded three albums of killer Martin Denny knock-offs for budget labels Alshire and Somerset.

________________________________

[Bright Moments]

ping pong

[mikeweil]

The only thing I previously learned about him was that Cal Tjader played with his band in the early 1950's, after returning from that near fatal Hawaii trip with the Dave Brubeck Trio and before joining the George Shearing Quintet.

Can anyone describe the music, or are there sound samples availabe on the web? I always wanted to find out if Tjader ever recorded with him - is there an online discography?

[mikeweil]

Seems Tjader was only briefly with Rey, but the search lead me to this nice pic:

[Bright Moments]

very nice pic mike! what was the story about the near fatal brubeck trio accident in hawaii?

i haven't ever heard this.

[JSngry]

Mingus worked in Rey's band.

I remember the King Family show, and it was as described above. The only cool thing was that Alvino had his console guitar hooked up to run his voice through it or something. It was called a "talking guitar". Pretty nifty.

[Dr. Rat]

very nice pic mike! what was the story about the near fatal brubeck trio accident in hawaii? 

i haven't ever heard this. 

12. Accident in Hawaii

The Brubecks had been living in an apartment near San Francisco and wanted to buy a home there, but Dave got a gig at Zardi's in Los Angeles, and they moved into a rented two-room house on the beach in Santa Monica. Then they put a down-payment on a house in San Francisco and drove all night, Iola slapping his face all the way, to make the closing in the city, but when they got there the deal had collapsed. They now had no place to live, and their things were in storage.

In the spring of 1951 a job came through at the Zebra Lounge in Honolulu, so it was off to Hawaii. They were so hard up they had to buy cut-rate cases of baby food which had been in a fire. But the children wouldn't eat it, so Dave wound up eating the burnt baby food himself in Honolulu.

The first week there he dove into a wave which suddenly disappeared, struck a sand bar with his head, and twisted his body. He sustained serious nerve damage, and ended up in traction in the hospital for 21 days. The Brubecks had to return to San Francisco, where Dave couldn't work because of his injury. Now he needed Desmond, since he was no longer capable of carrying off a trio by himself. He played fewer lines and more chords during his recovery, which lasted several years but did not tell anyone the reason at the time.

from http://www.jssmusic.com/brubeck_bio.html

Edited February 29, 2004 by WNMC

[Bright Moments]

wow!

thanks for the info!

[mikeweil]

There is a slightly different report in the Columbia 4-CD box, as far as the aquaintance with Desmond is concerned. Brubeck to this day suffers from headaches as a consequence of this accident.