12 July 2022

Phil Napoleon Jazz Trumpet Pioneer – Phantom Dancer 12 Jul 2022

Greg Poppleton's Phantom Dancer swing jazz radio show

Phil Napoleon, pioneer jazz trumpeter and band leader is this week’s Phantom Dancer feature artist.

Born Filippo Napoli, Napoleon led many recording sessions in the mid-1920s that helped build the popularity of jazz. He was a pioneer whose playing was influential on later trumpeters including Red Nichols and Bix Beiderbecke.

Here’s a 1925 recording of the Bass Ale Blues. Bass Ale was a popular tipple in Sydney in the 1920s and the uploader of this clip has included mugshots of Sydney suspects from the Sydney Police and Justice Museum collection…

The Phantom Dancer is your weekly non-stop mix of swing and jazz from live 1920s-60s radio and TV every week.

LISTEN to this week’s Phantom Dancer mix (online after 2pm AEST, Tuesday 12 July) and two years of Phantom Dancer mixes online at, at https://2ser.com/phantom-dancer/

PIONEER

Phil Napoleon was performing publicly by age 5 as a classical trumpeter in 1906.

In the 1910s, he was one of the first musicians in the northern US to embrace the new “jass” style brought to that part of the country from New Orleans.

He formed “The Original Memphis Five” with pianist Frank Signorell in 1917 and was one of the most sought after trumpeters of the 1920s.

The New York City-based Original Memphis Five were often in the recording studio in the acoustical recording era and made over 100 recordings in 1922-1923 alone.

Though Napoleon’s 1927 version of “Clarinet Marmalade” was a big success, The Original Memphis Five disbanded in 1928.

He recorded with the Cotton Pickers and the Charleston Chasers and also worked with blues singers Leona Williams and Alberta Hunter.

LATER CAREER

During the 1930s, Napoleon mainly worked as a session trumpeter, working in the RCA Radio Orchestra in the early 1930s

In 1937, Napoleon unsuccessfully tried to form his own orchestra.

He joined Jimmy Dorsey’s Orchestra in the mid 1940s, and appeared with the band in the film Four Jills in a Jeep.

Leaving Dorsey in 1947, he worked as a studio musician at NBC New York until 1949 when he reformed The Original Memphis Five, which you’ll hear on this week’s Phantom Dancer, broadcasting from Nick’s, where he continued to play into the 1950s.

His nephew, jazz pianist Marty Napoleon, worked with him often.

On July 3, 1959, Napoleon and The Memphis Five performed at the Newport Jazz Festival. This was recorded and released as an album.

“Napoleon’s Retreat” was his own club which he opened in Miami, Florida in 1966. He continued to perform Dixieland jazz in the club up until the 1980s.

12 JULY PLAY LIST