Manny Klein

Manny Klein (born as Emmanuel Klein on February 4, 1908; died May 31, 1994) was a jazz trumpeter most associated with swing.

He began with Paul Whiteman in 1928 and was active throughout the 1930s playing with several major bands of the era including the Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman. In 1937, he moved to California and worked with Frank Trumbauer's orchestra. And in early 1940, credited as Mannie Klein, he appears on Artie Shaw And His Orchestra recordings. He also did soundtracks and played trumpet for the film From Here to Eternity, but was uncredited. In addition, Klein worked with musicians associated with West Coast jazz in the 1950s.

A versatile player who studied with Max Schlossberg of the New York Philharmonic (whose other students included another New York-born trumpet luminary of the Big-band era, Bernie Glow), Klein could play in almost any setting, including first trumpet in an orchestra. In 1953, he appeared on the Capitol Records LP of Concerto In C Minor For Piano by Dmitri Shostakovich and The Four Temperaments by Paul Hindemith with Victor Aller and Felix Slatkin.

During the early 1960s, he appeared on several Dean Martin recordings. He played piccolo trumpet on Hugo Montenegro's hit version of the main theme to the 1966 film, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Klein was regarded as one of the most proficient trumpet players of his, or any generation. In addition to being a brilliant technician, Klein possessed an uncanny ability to mimic the styles of many other prominent trumpeters, namely Bunny Berigan and Ziggy Elman.

Klein died at the age of 86 in Los Angeles on May 31, 1994.