Frank Guarente may have been the first musician born outside the United States to have impact as a jazz musician and innovator in America. Guarente is particularly unique through his exceptional skills as a trumpeter, composer, and leader, in addition to his witness of, and participation in, the development of New Orleans jazz, New York jazz, and the commercial music scene of the 1930s. There is good evidence that Joe King Oliver, Freddie Keppard, and Nick LaRocca influenced Guarente, and that he reciprocated by sharing his "legitimate" music knowledge with them. There is also evidence that Frank Guarente was an influence on Bix Beiderbecke. Guarente was also present in the first wave of American jazz players to invade Europe in the mid-'20s.

Francesco Saverio Guarente was born at Montemiletto in Southern Italy on October 5, 1893. He apparently had a formal musical education before emigrating to the United States in 1910 to join one of his brothers in Allentown, PA. Early sources say that Guarente was a member of Creatore's Band, and that he toured the American South with Don Philippini's Symphony Orchestra. This has been put forward as evidence to how Guarente arrived in New Orleans in 1914, though other sources suggest it was for reasons of health. Later sources fail to mention these associations, but note that upon Guarente's arrival in New Orleans he worked in a bank for a time before becoming a full-time musician. Guarente was apparently attracted by the strange new sound of ragtime being played in New Orleans, and must have also felt comforted by the presence of a large Italian community in the city. Many of the earliest white jazz musicians came from this ethnic group.

Guarente knew many of the Italian-American musicians like Nick LaRocca and Tony Parenti, but his most intriguing association was that with his friend Joe King Oliver. Oliver showed Guarente his advanced mute techniques, and in return Guarente shared his knowledge of musical theory and reading ability with Oliver. Guarente's expertise with mutes is apparent on his recordings. He was much respected in New Orleans, and even Louis Armstrong recalled the young Italian trumpeter years later. During his two years in New Orleans, Guarente worked with many orchestras and brass bands, and even led a band at the legendary nightspot Tom Anderson's. By 1916, Frank Guarente was touring Texas billed as "Ragtime Frank" with a band called the Alabama Five. He enlisted in the American Army in World War I and returned briefly to Texas before going east to Philadelphia to join Charlie Kerr's Orchestra, which featured fellow Italian Eddie Lang on banjo.

In 1921, Guarente was in New York City and organizing a new band. He had selected musicians who could both play jazz and were also competent readers. Among them were Arthur Schutt, a skilled novelty and jazz pianist and advanced arranger, and drummer Chauncey Morehouse, who would later anchor the famous Jean Goldkette rhythm section. Society bandleader Paul Specht heard the group and incorporated them into his orchestra. Many call this the first "band within a band," anticipating groups like Bob Crosby's Bobcats and Tommy Dorsey's Clambake Seven. Guarente's group would adopt the name of the Georgians and make a series of 42 excellent jazz recordings for Columbia starting in 1922, continuing until shortly after Guarente's departure in 1924.

It is upon these recordings that Frank Guarente's reputation as a jazz improviser is based. Guarente's ability as both a musician and a leader prompted Paul Specht to declare him "irreplaceable." Guarente and the Georgians were on board when the Specht band sailed for England in the summer of 1923. The tremendous success of the Georgians in London and Paris must have suggested to both Specht and Guarente that Europe offered real opportunity. The following May, Guarente was back in Europe where he would re-form the Georgians and tour the Continent, including making an obscure recording session in Switzerland for the Kalophon label. He returned to England and began working and recording with Savoy Orpheans, Rhythmic Eight, and other British dance orchestras booked by entrepreneur Bert Firman. Guarente even recorded his old friend Joe Oliver's masterpiece Sugar Foot Stomp with the Devonshire Dance Orchestra, where he reprised the famous Oliver trumpet choruses. Nonetheless Guarente's European success was purchased at a price -- during the four years since he left the United States, jazz had witnessed the rise of its first instrumental superstars, such as trumpeters Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, and Red Nichols, and the emergence of hot dance orchestras playing sophisticated arrangements such as those led by Jean Goldkette, Fletcher Henderson, and Duke Ellington. Guarente's style, as revealed by his 1928 American recordings, was unchanged in the interim, and now hopelessly old-fashioned. But Guarente's musicianship rescued him, and he returned to work as a section player, often playing lead.

The assertion that Frank Guarente was an influence on the style of Bix Beiderbecke has its origins in the 1940s writings of Belgian jazz critic Robert Goffin. Harl Smith was a drummer with one of Paul Specht's New York units and also the manager of a Specht office that booked a midtown dancehall called the Cinderella Ballroom. In the early '20s Smith received a letter from an old friend, Min Leibrook, the bass and tuba player with the pioneering Midwest jazz band the Wolverines. The Wolverines then featured budding genius Beiderbecke, and were interested in a New York engagement. Smith decided to add them as a second band to the Cinderella for continuous music. The Wolverines proved a sensation. Later, when Guarente re-formed the Georgians for the European tour, Smith served as his drummer. This is where Smith encountered the Belgian Goffin, and the assertion of Beiderbecke's debt to Guarente's playing was made. The legato phrasing so uniquely associated with Beiderbecke is present in certain Guarente performances, for example in the Georgians' recording of Barney Google, made nine months before Beiderbecke's first recordings. Many of Robert Goffin's opinions have been dismissed over the years by later writers, but recently these ideas have regained some credibility with the publication of Richard Sudhalter's study -Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contribution to Jazz, 1915-1945.

Frank Guarente would continue to work through the 1930s for orchestra leader Victor Young and other major star attractions, such as the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra, Bing Crosby, and the Boswell Sisters, in addition to playing in studio orchestras on network radio programs. In 1937 Tommy Dorsey wanted to hire Guarente for his new orchestra, but by that time Frank Guarente's health was in decline. Frank Guarente died in New York City on July 21, 1942, at age 48. ~ Frank Powers, Rovi