A versatile trumpeter,
Ray Linn started out as a modernist and ended up as a revivalist.
Linn began his professional career playing with the orchestras of
Tommy Dorsey (1938-1941) and
Woody Herman (1941-1942); he would rejoin
Herman on three occasions (1945, 1947, and 1955-1959).
Linn also worked on and off with
Jimmy Dorsey (1942-1945),
Benny Goodman (1943 and 1947),
Artie Shaw (1944-1946), and
Boyd Raeburn (1946). While with
Raeburn, his solos were quite advanced for the period.
Linn became a studio musician after moving to Los Angeles in 1945, but had the opportunity to work with
Bob Crosby (1950-1951) and many of the top West Coast jazz players in the 1950s in addition to
Woody Herman. From the 1960s on, he mostly worked in television. Although his sessions as a leader in 1946 (which resulted in eight songs) had such titles as "The Mad Monk" and "Blop Blah,"
Ray Linn's later albums for Trend (1978) and Discovery (1980) were Dixieland-oriented. ~ Scott Yanow