Charlie Sonnanstine: 1928-1998

Published in The Frisco Cricket Summer 1998

Charles E. "Charlie" Sonnanstine. a major figure in the West Coast revival of traditional jazz, died in Sonoma. California, on June 5, 1998, at the age of 70.

Charlie was born on January 5, 1928, and raised in the Oakwood suburb of Dayton, Ohio. His father and uncle both worked in the circus, first as an acrobat act, and later as clowns. Charlie began studying music on violin in grade school. He took up trombone as a teenager, and while still in high school won a scholarship to study privately with the principal trombonist of the Cincinnati symphony. He later studied at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music.

He was a charter member of Gene Mayl's Dixieland Rhythm Kings and traveled with them from Dayton to the West Coast in the late '40s, where he met and played with Lu Watters and other members of Watters' Yerba Buena Jazz Band at Hambone Kelly's. Charlie left the DRK in the early '50s to go to New York City, where he met and later married his wife, Flora, in 1952. He also met and played with pianist Robin Wetterau, a native of Woodstock, New York, who was to become Charlie's closest musical associate and lifelong friend. They worked together in the Robin Hodes' Red Onion Jazz Band and other groups. From New York, Charlie went to England for a year, where he played with Sandy Brown's and Cy Lurie's jazz bands in London.

Upon his return to the U. S. Charlie rejoined the DRK. In the mid-'50s he and Wetterau. who had been the DRK's pianist at this time, moved to San Francisco and formed the Great Pacific Jazz Band. The Great Pacific JB was a nine-piece group (the usual seven piece "Dixieland" instrumentation plus a second cornet and banjo) formed largely of members of the recently-defunct Bay City Jazz Band. Charlie abandoned the trombone at this time in favor of the cornet, which he played for the next 30-plus years. He and Robin wrote out dozens of arrangements of obscure traditional jazz numbers, as well as several originals, for the Great Pacific. Originally intended as guidelines for new members and substitutes, they have since become an almost gospel part of many jazz bands' books today, due in large part to their marketing by Ted Shafer, a banjo player, band leader and jazz record producer whose friendship with Charlie and Robin dates back to his days as a fan of the DRK. Besides being available for sale through Shafer's Merry Makers Record Company, the arrangements were also donated in the early '80s to Rutgers University, where they are now part of the library of the Institute of Jazz Studies.

Charlie and Flora traveled to England for a second time in March 1961, where Charlie worked as harpsichord maker. It was also at this time, during a three-month stay in Florence, Italy, that Charlie was offered the position of restorer to a museum's antique keyboard collection. They returned to New York and Charlie resumed playing briefly with Robin. Charlie formed the Great Atlantic Jazz Band in 1980. In 1985 Charlie was in a very serious head-on auto collision. Despite his serious injuries Charlie's priorities were very clear as he made sure the doctor set his arm in a position where he could continue to play his cornet!

In 1988 Charlie and Flora moved to Sonoma, California. At Flora's urging he returned to the trombone after some 30 years of playing cornet and continued playing music with Ted Shafer's Jelly Roll Jazz Band, the South Frisco Jazz Band and other groups. Charlie wrote more jazz band arrangements and published a "fake book" of pieces not commonly encountered in other fake books. Shortly before becoming ill, Charlie had completed a recording for Stomp Off Records: a soon-to-be-released two-volume CD album for which he was the principal musical arranger. The recording recreates the music that might have been heard at tent shows of the type staged by the likes of Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, in the 1920s.

Although best-known for his accomplishments in the field of traditional jazz, Charlie was really quite a Renaissance Man. He also composed music in other idioms, including string quartets, and the music of J. S. Bach was actually his favorite. Outside of music, he was a painter of the modern school as well as an expert woodworker. He built and restored harpsichords and clavichords, and had at one time worked for the New York Museum of Natural History, helping to construct and restore exhibits. He also taught woodworking to recovering addicts at the Exodus House in East Harlem for twelve years in the '60s and '70s. During this time period Charlie received his teaching' credentials by going to night school.

Charlie Sonnanstine is survived by his wife, Flora, and a son, Tony.

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