Trombone Legend Dick Nash: An Appreciation

The history of Berklee College of Music began in 1945, when founder Lawrence Berk opened the college’s predecessor, Schillinger House. It was the first American school to teach jazz, the popular music of the day.

During those early years, the typical student was a young professional who wanted to take a year or so off from life on the road to develop skills that could open new career opportunities. One such student was Dick Nash ’48, who at the age of 19, chose to take a year off from his developing career as a trombonist playing with Glen Gray’s Casa Loma Orchestra.

The year was 1948, and in Nash’s own words, “I spent a year getting my jazz chops together, studying what J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding were doing.” There were three ensembles at Schillinger House at that time and Nash played lead trombone in all three. During that year, he also worked on his sound with John Coffey, a renowned trombonist and member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. “I got to study with one of the greatest brass teachers,” Nash recalls enthusiastically.

The year Nash spent at Schillinger House (which was renamed Berklee in 1954), laid the foundation for a career that eventually led him to Los Angeles in the mid-1950s. His first break came with the Freddy Martin band, playing six nights a week at the famous Ambassador Hotel. From there he made his way into the studio world and eventually to numerous movie-scoring sessions at Fox Studios under the direction of Alfred and Lionel Newman.

Nash met the young Henry Mancini when Mancini was still an orchestrator at Universal Pictures. When Mancini got his break as the composer for the movie The Glenn Miller Story, he featured Nash on the ballad “Too Little Time.” Nash went on to establish a reputation for his gorgeous trombone performances on such Mancini arrangements as “My One and Only Love,” “Misty,” “Till There Was You,” and “The Shadow of Your Smile.” Nash recorded a total of 15 albums with Mancini, including those featuring the composer’s renowned scores for Peter Gunn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Hatari!, Mr. Lucky, and Days of Wine and Roses. In Nash’s opinion, Mancini “could write melodies like no one else.”

Nash also speaks fondly of his recording sessions with the late Jerry Goldsmith, whom he describes as a “very inventive composer,” and with John Williams. Of Williams, he says: “John can really write for brass—you know he was a trombone player in [U.S. military] service bands.”

Dick Nash, who began his career in Boston six decades ago, has more than 3,200 film and television score recordings to his credit. The modest 84-year old trombonist, best known for his beautiful ballads, is truly a legend in the L.A. recording industry.