Don Kinch is one of the most admired trumpet players of the New Orleans Revival. His brilliant melodic sense and swinging beat also made him one of the best San Francisco tubaists and one of its most gifted soloists.
Published in the The Frisco Cricket, which is available when you Join the Foundation (only $25!).
From the Frisco Cricket article Yerba Buena Tuba by Hal Smith, Summer 1998
Don Kinch (1917-)
Don Kinch started on violin, then took up trumpet and string bass, working with a variety of dance bands on the West Coast. In Portland, he played trumpet alongside Bob Short and George Bruns in the Rose City Stompers and later in the Castle Jazz Band. In 1950, he joined Bruns in the Turk Murphy Jazz Band and continued to work on and off with the Murphy band for several years. In the middle '50s he went to work at Disney Studios in Burbank and played casuals in Southern California with Bruns' Wonderland Jazz Band, Marvin Ash, Ben Pollack and the Firehouse Five Plus Two. He took up tuba in 1958, replacing George Bruns with the FH5.15 (Eventually he switched from tuba to helicon while working with the Firehouse Five at Disneyland). In the early '70s, he moved back to Portland and opened a stringed instrument repair business. He played trumpet and helicon with his own Conductors Ragtime Band but has not been active on brass bass in the recent past.