By JANAE HACKWORT
Alvino Rey, an accomplished musician and big band leader of the 1930's and 40's, will be making a guest performance with the BYU 'Jazz Legacy Dixieland Band' tonight. The performance is a tribute to Rey's accomplishments in music especially to jazz.
'As a young man in New York in the 1920's, he had the opportunity to play with many of the early jazz greats. In the 30's and 40's, he was a major jazz band leader,' said Steve Call, director of the Dixieland Band.
Originally from Calif., Rey became involved in music when he was in high school in Cleveland, Ohio.
During his career in music, Rey traveled all over the United States as well as touring in Europe. Rey also received musical training all over the world.
'I studied with everybody I could,' said Rey, currently a resident of Sandy, Utah.
While studying in Europe in the 40's and 50's, Rey was taught by Andre Segovia, a master classic guitarist. He also studied under other great people.
'One of my teachers taught Gershwin, Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, and myself,' Rey said.
Rey originally started playing the banjo and worked with little jazz bands mainly playing dance music in 1927.
'I have always played jazz, but a lot of times we didn't play it for people because they wanted dance music,' Rey said.
Impressed with Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti, Rey became interested in the hot fiddle and guitar.
Rey, along with a violinist, then left Cleveland for New York.
'We joined the orchestra, 'Phil's Spitalny,' and played with them for two years,' Rey said.
This orchestra would play at the Hotel Pennsylvania. After these performances, Rey would meet with other people interested in jazz.
'I would go up to Harlem and play with jazz greats. We would all just sit around playing all night,' Rey said.
When the stock crash of 1929 occurred, Rey left New York and headed back to California.
'I was in the staff orchestra at NBC. All radio stations had orchestras back then,' Rey said. 'I was there until I discovered the electric guitar in 1932.'
'Rock-and-roll wouldn't be what it is today without him (Rey) because of his innovations with the electric guitar,' Call said. 'He also developed the pedal steel guitar used in country music.'
In 1938, Rey formed his own orchestra. 'It was my first dance orchestra I had on radio,' he said.
They played mainly dance music but if time permitted, at the end of a set, they would play jazz music that people could dance to.
During this time, Rey and his band recorded a lot of their music. His recording was cut short when Rey left to serve in World War II.
After serving in the Navy, Rey came home and formed the band again. This time, the emphasis was on jazz.
'We had a swinging band with a lot of jazz music. It was a wild jazz band. We recorded a lot with that,' Rey said.
One fact that separates Rey from other big band leaders was that he was the only big band leader to feature the guitar.
'There were a lot of great guitarists, but they never had guitar leaders,' Rey said.
During his career, Rey accumulated many awards for his musical talents as a player and leader.
He has won the All American Jazz Guitar Player award twice. He received the Hall of Fame award for Guitar by the Steel Guitar Convention. His band was also voted as one of the top ten of all bands in the world for all time by the Big Band Academy