Frank Guarente

Francesco Saverio "Frank" Guarente was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader. Guarente received formal training in music while in Italy, and emigrated to America in 1910, settling in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where a brother of his lived. He relocated to New Orleans in 1914, where he took a job in a bank and associated with ethnically Italian musicians such as Nick LaRocca and Tony Parenti; he also met King Oliver, and eventually started getting gigs with New Orleans brass bands. He played at Tom Anderson's club and toured Texas under the name Ragtime Frank with his ensemble, the Alabama Five. In 1917, he served in the United States Army during World War I, then played in Philadelphia with Charlie Kerr. He founded his own group in 1921 in New York, which included Arthur Schutt and Chauncey Morehouse. Soon after, Paul Specht picked his players up to join a larger orchestra, and Guarente played with Specht, including on European tours, through 1924. He also led a Specht side group called The Georgians, which recorded between 1922 and 1924 in the style of the Original Dixieland Jass Band. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_G...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)