Felix and the Cats

RUSSO, SONNY: [Santo] (b New York, 20 March 1929). Trombonist.

Sol Yaged, Felix Endico, Sonny Russo, Unknown, and Britta Langshoen

He was principally a sideman and soloist in big bands. He first worked with Buddy Morrow (1947), Lee Castle (1948), and Sam Donahue (1949), and played and recorded with Artie Shaw (1949-50). He was a member of Buddy Rich's orchestra (1951-2) and played and recorded with the clarinetist Jerry Wald (1951-2), the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra (1953-5), and Tommy Dorsey (1955-6); he also took part in sessions with Neal Hefti (1954-5), John LaPorta (1955), and the drummer Mickey Sheen (Have Swing Will Travel, 1955, Herald 0105). In 1956 he began to work in Broadway shows, but he continued to record, with Sauter and Finegan (1956-c1961) Louie Bellson and Dinah Washington (both 1957), Toots Thielemans and Rex Stewart (both 1958), Lionel Hampton (1960), Bobby Hackett (1064), Dorothy Ashby and Benny Goodman (both 1965), and Grover Washington, Jr. (1973), and with such ensembles as Trombone Scene (1956), Urbie Green and 21 Trombones (1968), and All Star Trombone Spectacular (1977).

The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz. St. Martin's Press. 1995. Page 1073.