Jimmy Cavallo - Starting Out in Syracuse

Starting Out in Syracuse

When Cavallo (often misspelled Cavello) was in high school in Syracuse in the early 1940s, he played in a swing band, playing harmony on alto sax. He knew even then that playing the harmony was not for him, and he wanted to do the melody line, sing and lead a band. Cavallo started buying Louis Jordan records and learning those songs, and other jump blues records, and soon switched to tenor sax because that was the lead horn in jump blues. When Cavallo was around 16, he formed his own band, but the only work they got was playing local Italian weddings (and the occasional Polish, Jewish, or Irish wedding).

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