Urbie Green

Did You Know?

• Green was taught piano as a child by his mother, but started playing trombone at about age 12 because both his older brothers played it.
• He was voted New Star trombonist in the International Critics Poll of Down Beat magazine in 1954, one year after moving to New York City.
• After Tommy Dorsey's death in 1956, Green led the Tommy Dorsey orchestra.
• Green's obituary was published in the Pocono Record.

Early years

Green was born in Mobile, Alabama, and learned piano from his mother as a child. He began playing trombone around age twelve, following his older brothers. He listened to trombonists Tommy Dorsey, J. C. Higginbotham, Jack Jenney, Jack Teagarden, and Trummy Young, but cited Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Lester Young as greater influences. His style was also shaped by the vocals of Perry Como and Louis Armstrong. He attended Auburn High School and played in The Auburn Knights Orchestra.

Career

Urbie Green was just fifteen when his father died, prompting him to launch his music career. He started playing with Tommy Reynolds in California, moving on to bands led by Bob Strong, Jan Savitt, and Frankie Carle. He earned his high school diploma at the Hollywood Professional School in Los Angeles. In 1947, he joined Gene Krupa’s ensemble, and three years later, he and his brother Jack signed on with Woody Herman’s Thundering Herd.

Green relocated to New York City in 1953, and the next year, Down Beat’s International Critics Poll named him New Star trombonist. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, he toured with Benny Goodman and took over leadership of the Tommy Dorsey orchestra following Dorsey’s 1956 death. He collaborated with producer Enoch Light on the albums The Persuasive Trombone of Urbie Green and 21 Trombones. In his later years, Green lived with his second wife Kathy, a jazz singer, in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains.

He was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1995 and kept performing every September at the Delaware Water Gap Celebration of the Arts Festival until the end of his life.