Helen's Blues - Red Mack featuring Helen Andrews
McLure Morris (Red Mack), trumpeter, pianist/organist, drummer, vocalist and bandleader: born Memphis, Tennessee 18 January 1912; died Los Angeles, California 14 June 1993. RED MACK was with Kid Ory's Creole Jazz Band when it appeared in the 1955 bio-pic The Benny Goodman Story, helping to give authenticity to the actor Steve Allen's simulated attempts at traditional jazz. It was the trumpeter's reddish complexion and freckles which gave him the stage name he used throughout a long and musically distinguished career in black jazz in California. Mack's family went West before the First World War hoping to pick cotton, oddly enough, but soon found other work and settled. He took up trumpet at school, inspired by a celebrated local player, Claude Kennedy, and was adept enough to work with territory bands while still in his teens. By 1930, he was with Louis Armstrong at the Cotton Club in Culver City and was called on to play his idol's solo specialities over the a...