A trumpeter and vocalist, Louis Bacon can be added to the short list of jazz performers who need to be invited to a banquet, putting him in the company of Floyd R. Bean, Phil Napoleon, Benny Waters, and Chuck Steak, among others. Listeners most often recognize Bacon as a name amongst the horn section on recordings by the Duke Ellington orchestra and Louis Armstrong in big-band mode, material that has been reissued in enough different formats to make the discography of Bacon as fat as a large pork shoulder roast. He was raised by a widow in Chicago, and began playing professionally at the age of 22 with the combo of Zinky Cohn. In 1928, Bacon slid onto the New York City plate, backing up a pair of dancers known by the stage name of Brown & McGraw. In 1928, following a short stint with the excessive Bingie Madison, the trumpeter joined the band of Lt. J. Tim Brymnn before cutting loose in 1930 with Chick Webb. Following four years racing after this great swing drummer, Bacon spent a year frying in the Ellington sizzle. Next up was Luis Russell, who became even more interesting to work with in 1938 following the creation of a combined band with Armstrong. Subsequent recordings by this outfit are generally where jazz fans find themselves hearing Bacon for the first time. A bout of tuberculosis took Bacon off the fire just when this new group was really taking off, but it turned out not be as disastrous to his career as this disease could be. By 1939, the trumpeter was back on-stage at the Savoy Ballroom, working with the Benny Carter Big Band. At the end of that year, he left for Europe by boat in order to join up with Willie Lewis, an American bandleader who had fled the United States. This turned out to be a ticket to extensive touring for the next two years. Bacon hung with Lewis in Portugal and traipsed back home after him in 1941 when Lewis decided to repatriate. In 1942, Bacon worked with trumpet giant Cootie Williams, a former colleague from the Ellington band. Bacon was subsequently ill again, then back in action with reed player Garvin Bushell in the summer of 1944. Later in that decade, Bacon performed in U.S.O. tours of Asia as a member of the Jesse Stone Orchestra, the music strongly reminiscent of the Armstrong and Russell arrangements. By the '50s, his medical problems pretty much forced him to abandon trumpet playing, but he was on-stage from time to time at New York City clubs such as Ryan's, focused more and more on his vocal work, and had considerable success as a vocal coach. In the '60s, Ryan worked more often as an ambulance driver then a musician, the sirens probably reminding him of Cootie Williams. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi