Bob Enevoldsen - R.I.P.

[Captain Bacardi]

Multi-instrumentalist Bob Enevoldsen died on November 19. Among his many instruments that he played were trombone, valve trombone, Bari sax and tenor sax. It's been impossible to find an actual obituary for him, but I did find a nice piece written about Bob on the All About Jazz website by Doug Ramsey:

One of the joys of listening to The Bill Holman Band the past decade or so has been the opening minute of “No Joy In Mudville.” Over an insistent one-bar riff figure repeated by the saxophones, Bob Enevoldsen plays a valve trombone solo of pure exuberance. It is the first track in Holman's CD A View From The Side. It was, almost invariably, the first piece he called when the band performed. I write “was” because the bad news is that Enevoldsen died last Saturday, November 19 2005. In a palpable sense, he was central to the spirit of that great band, as he was to jazz on the west coast for more than half a century.

In Leonard Feather's and Ira Gitler's Biographical Encylopedia of Jazz, his entry begins,

ENEVOLDSEN, BOB (ROBERT MARTIN), v-tbn., tbn, bs, bari horn, tr sax, etc. b Billings, MT, 9/11/20 That “etc.” covers arranging. Enevoldsen was a superb arranger and ochestrator and, when the occasion arose, an effective and congenial leader. He was best known for his valve trombone and in greatest demand on that horn, but he was also a tenor saxophonist with original ideas and a fetching graininess in his tone. He shines on both horns in his own group and with Harry Babasin's quintet in Jazz In Hollywood, a CD reissue of 1954 recordings from the Nocturne label. In the fifties when his trombone chops went temporarily into decline, Enevoldsen switched to bass and continued to make a living. There's a bit of his bass playing on the Babasin recordings.

Much of his income came from work in Los Angeles television and movie studios, which offered economic survival for many top-flight jazz artists. But his heart was in jazz, and he left a fifty-year trail of memorable performances and recordings with Holman, Gerry Mulligan, Shelly Manne, Shorty Rogers, Bob Florence, Bob Crosby, Tex Beneke, Mel Torm, the Lighthouse All-Stars, Henry Mancini and Terry Gibbs, to name a few in the wide range of musicians who insisted on his services.

A burly man, after he worked up a crop of facial hair and took on some age he came to resemble St. Nicholas with a neatly trimmed beard. Enevoldsen was hampered the past several years by the circulation problems that led to his death, but he kept working. His daughter drove him to rehearsals and gigs and helped him onto the bandstand. Bill Holman told me yesterday that Enevoldsen's physical problems disappeared once the band started playing. “When it was time for him to solo,” Holman said, “the years fell away.”

Bob Enevoldsen: never a star, never a household name, always a pleasure to hear; gone at eighty-five.

Capt. Bacardi

 

[Captain Bacardi]

The L.A. Times finally ran an obit:

Bob Enevoldsen, 85; Jazz Trombonist Played With Big Bands

Bob Enevoldsen, 85, a West Coast musician best known for his exuberant jazz trombone playing, died Nov. 19 at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Woodland Hills.

In the 1950s, he worked with Shelly Manne at the famed Hermosa Beach jazz club the Lighthouse and performed with Bobby Troup's trio and Terry Gibbs' big band. He also played with Art Pepper, Shorty Rogers, Gerry Mulligan and other leading West Coast figures.

Most recently, Enevoldsen performed with the Bill Holman and Jack Sheldon big bands.

Born in Billings, Mont., the musician started playing violin at 5. His violinist father was a conductor at a silent movie theater.

After receiving his bachelor's in music in 1942 from the University of Montana, Enevoldsen played in the Army Air Forces band during World War II. In 1946, he joined a big band in Salt Lake City as a tenor saxophonist and discovered the valve trombone.

He also became known for playing the bass.

Most of Enevoldsen's income came from his work as a studio musician for television and film.



Capt. Bacardi