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Amongst historic jazz musicians who doubled as chicken farmers,
Charlie Margulis could proudly claim to have the most loaded basket artistically. Rising out of a highly disciplined corps of accomplished theater music performers in the '20s, the Minnesotan became associated with a series of classic jazz bandleaders including
Paul Whiteman in the latter half of that decade and
Glenn Miller in the '30s. The trumpeter also conducted activities under another name,
Charlie Marlowe. As the combination of
Marlowe and/or
Margulis, he was hardly out of breath in the '40s and '50s, playing on many freelance recording sessions from bases in both California, where he was
Marlowe, and New York City, where he was
Margulis.
Minneapolis movie theaters in which admission to a triple bill cost a dime were
Margulis' introduction to the professional musician's life. From there he went on to work with territory bands led by Eddie Elkins,
Paul Specht and others. He joined a Detroit group,
Jean Goldkette's Book-Cadillac Hotel Orchestra in 1924, working under a friendly conductor named
Joe Venuti who went on to become a famous swing violin player.
Margulis' next boss was bandleader
Ray Miller in a period when the trumpeter roamed back and forth between Detroit and Chicago. In 1927
Margulis began working with
Whiteman, the relationship lasting nearly three years and concluding in a traditional manner for progressive jazz bands, with various sidemen stranded on the West coast.
Margulis managed to straggle back to New York City, bad luck perched on his shoulder. He got so sick that he had to return to California in order to recover but by the middle of the '30s was well enough to log in for a New York City recording session with the
Dorsey Brothers. Caught up in the excitement of the new swing style, a logical extension of what
Whiteman had been doing but with a more danceable flow,
Margulis tried out life as a bandleader as well as spending a year on tour with another
Miller, this one a genre messiah,
Glenn Miller. The stint put him "In the Mood" for the surname as well as the style, at least from the evidence of a 1938 stint with Jack Miller. Meanwhile, the trumpeter's activities as a bandleader also continued -- like many of his peers,
Margulis sought the economic safety net of the recording studios when public tastes began to embrace styles such as doo wop and R&B. The trumpeter's chicken farm in the late '30s was another attempt at economic intervention, yet in the '40s and '50s his flexibility as a freelancer financially fried more eggs. ~ Eugene Chadbourne