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Born

  • May 19, 1919
  • Toronto, ON

Died

  • January 8, 1990
  • Palm Springs, CA

Real Name

  • John Altwerger

Theme Song

  • I've Got a Right to Know

Georgie Auld

Sax player Georgie Auld is best-remembered for his short-lived, avant-garde orchestra of the mid-1940s. Although the orchestra swung consistently and featured sophisticated, often brilliant arrangements it proved more a success with musicians than with the general public.

Born in Canada, Auld's family moved to the United States in 1929. He formed his own small group in 1936 before joining Bunny Berigan the following year. In 1939 he signed with Artie Shaw's orchestra, taking over the group when Shaw quit and ran off to Mexico. Unable to keep the newly-named Georgie Auld and his Artie Shaw Orchestra together he disbanded it after only three months. He then work briefly with Jan Savitt in the spring of 1940 before joining Benny Goodman in November of that year as a member of his sextet.

Auld rejoined Artie Shaw in the summer of 1941 after Shaw formed a new band and remained with him until the following January when Shaw disbanded the new orchestra, this time to join the Navy. Auld then led his own group for a year before serving a brief stint in the Army. After his discharge Auld led a quartet at New York's Three Deuces from June to September of 1943 before forming his avant-garde orchestra. During it's three-year existence it featured, at various times, such artists as Dizzy Gillespie, Errol Garner, Neal Hefti and Sarah Vaughan. He disbanded the group in 1946 when he discovered he had contracted tuberculosis.

Auld spent time briefly in Arizona and then California. He returned to New York after his health recovered and began leading his own group at the Three Deuces again. He then moved to California in 1948, where he played with Billy Eckstine and lead an outfit of his own. Later that year he went back to New York and opened his own club, the Troubadour Club, on 52nd Street. He also appeared in the Broadway show The Rat Race. In 1950 he joined Count Basie's sextet and later that same year formed his own quintet.

Health problems forced Auld to again move to California in 1951, where he worked freelance for MGM and opened another club, the Melody Room. In the late 1950s he did studio work in New York and then moved to Las Vegas. He lead his own group throughout the 1960s and 1970s, making several recordings and appearing in the 1977 film New York, New York in the role of the bandleader. He continued performing until his death in 1990.