Artist: Bob Zurke
Genre(s):
Blues
Discography:
Collection (Boogie Woogie)
Year:
Tracks: 3
One of the legions of idle words musicians to have lived hard and died young, the Detroit-born Zurke was best known for his stint as pianist with singer Bob Crosby's Bobcats. Zurke spent time with Oliver Naylor's Orchestra in Philadelphia during the late '20s and early '30s; he besides recorded with bassist Thelma Terry & Her Playboys in 1928. Around that meter, organiser Don Redman hired Zurke (and Glen Gray of the Casa Loma Orchestra) to written matter parts for arrangements he'd written for McKinney's Cotton Pickers. Zurke united the Bobcats late in 1936, and (except for a 1937 hiatus brought on by a crushed leg suffered in horseplay with Bob Haggart) remained with them until the summertime of 1939, when he formed his have short-lived large banding. That band bust up the following spring.
Alimony problems landed Zurke in jailhouse briefly in 1940. After his release that August, he worked as a solo piano player. During the number one half of 1941, he played in Chicago, Detroit, and St. Paul. He touched to Los Angeles in the summertime of 1942. That August he began a tenure at the Hangover Club, where he would cover to work until his death in early 1944. On February 15, Zurke collapsed in the club and was taken to Los Angeles General Hospital; he died a day later at eld 32. Zurke was jolly popular in his day, winning the Down Beat mag poll in 1939 as c. H. Best pianist. He was an whizz boogie-woogie actor and reportedly a front-runner of Jelly Roll Morton. While his to the highest degree famous association was with Bob Crosby, Zurke also worked with other musicians of promissory note, including Connee Boswell, Bunny Berigan, the Andrews Sisters, and Bing Crosby (Bob's comrade). In 1983, the City of Hamtramck, MI, esteemed Zurke's computer storage with a memorial cruise; attendees included Bob Crosby.
