Ford Leary

With a name that sounds like an abbreviated aversion to a brand of automobile, Ford Leary had a short musical career which began in the mid- '30s in New York City and ended in the late '40s at Bellevue Hospital. He is in fact the only trombonist of note to have died while under admission to that infamous institution, although listeners who dislike the trombone no doubt wish all the people that played the horn could get locked up in there. Leary was admitted to Bellevue in 1949 after having been in rotten physical shape for a long period of time. At least two years were spent attempting to recover from a back injury, a calamity that halted a new and entirely different momentum to his career. Leary had broken through as an actor in the Broadway show entitled Follow the Girls. Following the bunnies was more like it in the early years, as in bandleader Bunny Berigan. That association was one of the better jobs Leary found for himself while scuffling to establish himself as a freelance musician in a big city, New York City to be exact. A more accurate description of this process can be found in the autobiography of Ray Charles, Brother Ray: "That's some slow sh*t." The trombonist moved on to the bands of Larry Clinton in 1938, Charlie Barnet in 1940, and Mike Riley in 1941. One-armed trumpeter Muggsy Spanier put Leary in a big band formed the following year. ~ Eugene Chadbourne