HERB GELLER

Herb Geller was born in Los Angeles on 2 November 1928. His first professional job was at an L.A. club called Mike Riley's Mad House in 1945. Thereafter he became part of veteran jazz fiddler Joe Venuti's band before finding himself in New York with the Claude Thornhill Band at a time when there was still an active jazz performing and recording scene. Here he met and married jazz pianist Lorraine Walsh. Then it was back west to be part of the expanding "west coast jazz" school in and around Los Angeles composed of Shorty Rogers, Art Pepper, Chet Baker, and Shelley Manne. Geller also played in an early edition of Maynard Ferguson's Orchestra. He and his wife Lorraine co-led a successful quartet until her tragic early death in 1958. This was a personal watershed and he left for a period of revaluation in Brazil before finally setting sail for read more...