Published in the Frisco Cricket Winter 1998

Jack Raymond Buck, a San Francisco trombonist and pianist who worked with Bob Scobey and Pat Patton as well as his own Jack Buck Jazz Band, died December 7, 1997 at the age of 86. He is survived by his son Tom.

Jack was born in Keokuk, Iowa, on October 6, 1911. He began playing the piano when he was six years old. By the age of seven he was playing organ at the community church.

As a high school freshman Jack played baritone horn. He took third place at a statewide brass competition by displaying his virtuosity on all types of brass horns. Listening to the many bands playing on Mississippi river boats solidified Jack's desire to become a jazz player.

The Buck family moved ot Oakland, California, in 1928 and Jack attended his senior year at Oakland Technical High. Exercising his option of enrolling in either the band or ROTC, he met with band director Herman Trutner who told him that he really needed a trombone plyer. Jack bought a trombone, taught himself the "positions" from the piano, and joined the Tech High Band. Shortly thereafter he began playing with a high school Dixieland band which included clarinetist-turned-vocalist Tony Martin. Somewhere he even found time to play on summer cruises.

Following high school, Jack hired on with the Griff Williams Band for a couple of years and then the Ellis Kimball Band as trombonist and arranger. Mary Ann Harris was singing with Kimball's band and, in 1935, agreed to marry Jack.

In 1939, Jack started playing with Pat Patton's (Original) Frisco Jazz Band featuring Red Gillam (and later, Eddie Smith), Jack Crook, Buck, Ray Jahnigen, and Gordon Edwards.

About 1950, following the break-up of both the Frisco Jazz Band and Lu Watters' Yerba Buena Jazz Band, Jack got together with Bob Scobey to form Alexander's Jazz Band (Scobey's middle name) including Scobey, Buck, Pat O'Casey, Burt Bales, Squire Girsback, Bill Dart and Bill Newman. Son afterwards, the recording company changed the name to Bob Scobey's Frisco Band. The band now featured Scobey, Buck, George Prober, Wally Rose, Dick Lammi, Freddy Higuera and Clancy Hayes. Jack stared with the band for twelve years, Playing locally as well as traveling throughout the United States.

When Scobey moved the band permanently to Chicago, Jack wanted no part of its cold, windy winters and returned to the Bay Area where he fronted his own group. But times had turned tough for musicians and in order to support Mary and his family -- Nina, John, Tom and Christina 0-- Jack found a "day job" in real estate where he became quite successful.

It was during this time that Jack was elected to membership in the prestigious Bohemian Club of San Francisco as well as invited to play piano with Red Gillam's Danville Hotel Jazz Band, providing jazz for dinner and dancing in the Silver Dollar Banquet Room of the old Danville Hotel up until Red's passing in 1970.

A 1971 jam session oat Bob Ulsh's newly-completed backyard pool proved to be the official birthplace of Jack Buck's Jazz Band when the owner of the Bow and Bell in Oakland's Jack London Square hired the group on the spot to play at his waterfront restaurant. Under Jack's leadership and Ulsh's management the band performed Monday nights for more than four years, until 1975, when the Oakland Port Authority condemned the building and the club was forced to close.

The band moved into the newly-renovated Danville Hotel in 1976, playing first Sunday afternoons to SRO crowds for many years.

In 1986 Jack retired from active participation in the JBJB and lived in Pleasant hill, California until his death.

Published in the The Frisco Cricket, which is available when you Join the Foundation (only $25!).