Peanuts Hucko

The explanation behind Peanuts Hucko's nickname was disappointingly prosaic - "When I was a kid I was always eating peanuts." In some ways Hucko was the perfect example of a swing era sideman. He had done everything from playing in the big bands - he was Glenn Miller's main soloist - to touring the world as a member of Louis Armstrong's All Stars sextet. He was a journeyman of the highest quality, always at the arm of the big star.

Michael Andrew Hucko (Peanuts Hucko), clarinettist and bandleader: born Syracuse, New York 7 April 1918; twice married; died Denton, Texas 19 June 2003.

The explanation behind Peanuts Hucko's nickname was disappointingly prosaic - "When I was a kid I was always eating peanuts." In some ways Hucko was the perfect example of a swing era sideman. He had done everything from playing in the big bands - he was Glenn Miller's main soloist - to touring the world as a member of Louis Armstrong's All Stars sextet. He was a journeyman of the highest quality, always at the arm of the big star.

Although he became one of the best swing clarinettists, Hucko's instrument for the first few years of his career was the tenor saxophone. Later his clarinet style was soundly based on that of Benny Goodman, observed at close hand when Hucko played tenor sax in Goodman's band in the middle Forties. "I played for five trombonists, too," he said. "Jack Jenney, Will Bradley, Glenn Miller, Jack Teagarden and Tommy Dorsey."

Hucko was the epitome of a hot player and from 1950 onwards was regarded as one of the best Dixieland clarinettists. But no matter how aroused he sounded in his solos, he was always in command and taking care of business. The trombonist Roy Williams was part of a band formed to tour Britain with the clarinettist. One night in a club, the music got better and better until, at the end, the usually sophisticated Williams was carried away with the excitement of it all. As the last number finished, he looked across in admiration at Hucko. "That's marvellous," said the clarinettist, looking at his watch. "They wanted us to finish at eleven fifteen and it's eleven fifteen dead on the button." He began to put his clarinet away.

In 1939 the trombonist Will Bradley and the drummer Ray McKinley had formed a band under Bradley's leadership. They tapped the popular boogie woogie vein and had hits with numbers like "Beat me Daddy, Eight to the Bar" and "Celery Stalks at Midnight". Hucko left Jack Jenney's band to join Bradley on tenor sax at the beginning of the band's success and was fired and re-hired three times by Ray McKinley because he refused to play clarinet in the band. Hucko stayed for a year and then moved on through the bands of Joe Marsala, Charlie Spivak and Bob Chester before being called into the US Army. Although he barely knew Benny Goodman, Goodman pulled strings for him and had Hucko enlisted as a musician.

Hucko kicked his heels in Army backwaters for some months. He said

They trained us as infantrymen as well, and that's when I decided to make clarinet my main instrument. They made us march through sand carrying our instruments, and it was much easier with a clarinet than with the tenor.

McKinley had become one of the organisers of Glenn Miller's Army Band and he arranged to have Hucko transferred to it. He was surprised to find Hucko playing clarinet and, paradoxically, Hucko played tenor at first in the band. It was only when Miller overheard his clarinet-playing by accident that Miller moved him to be the band's leading soloist on that instrument.

Miller was a strict disciplinarian who treated his musicians as the soldiers that they were. Most of them didn't like him, but Hucko got on extremely well with him and, had Miller survived, would undoubtedly have gone on to work for him after the Army days.

By the time the Miller Army Band came to Europe, McKinley had formed a successful small group within the band with Hucko and the pianist Mel Powell. When they reached Paris the small group recorded with Django Reinhardt. When the band arrived in Britain, London was being assailed by V1 pilotless bombs and the musicians didn't like the idea of staying in the city. Arrangements were made for them to stay in Bedfordshire. On their first night in the county, an off-course V1 exploded only hundreds of yards from where the band was staying.

Demobilised, Hucko joined the Benny Goodman band on tenor sax and then rejoined Ray McKinley for a year. By 1976 he was playing clarinet in Eddie Condon's New York club. The move led him away from the tenor again and he became a Dixieland clarinettist. He played this role in the classic concert given by Louis Armstrong at New York Town Hall in 1947.

His instrumental skills were so good that he had little trouble getting a job in the New York studios during the early Fifties. The studio orchestras were packed with great jazz musicians and Hucko worked and recorded on both his instruments with the likes of Billy Butterfield, Lou McGarity and Boomie Richman. He worked at Condon's in the evenings and made a name for himself with Condon's sophisticated audience.

When a band was put together to be led by Jack Teagarden on a European tour, Hucko was the natural choice on clarinet. His return to Britain with the band in 1957 was as a star, and he later returned many times to play with British musicians in that role. In 1958 he replaced Edmond Hall in Louis Armstrong's All Stars and toured the world with the trumpeter.

In the early Sixties Hucko married Louise Tobin, a fine singer who had been the trumpeter Harry James's first wife. Their happy marriage was to last until Hucko's death. Harry James was delighted, because it meant that he no longer had to pay the not inconsiderable alimony that had been involved, and Hucko became a popular stepfather to James's children. At Hucko's 80th birthday party, Harry Jeffrey James said, "I don't want to be unkind to my Dad, I just didn't know him very well. But Peanuts, you're the best father I ever had."

Hucko returned to Condon's to lead the house band from 1964 until 1966 and during the next decade led the Glenn Miller "ghost" band from time to time. He joined the World's Greatest Jazz Band when it was formed in 1968 but left to settle in Denver where he was the co-owner of the Navarre restaurant. He also led the band there. He reached a huge audience with regular appearances on television with the very commercial Lawrence Welk Orchestra during the early Seventies.

From then onwards, he appeared around the world, often accompanied by Louise Tobin, who sang with him in many Benny Goodman tributes. Indeed Hucko's regular library consisted mainly of Goodman favourites. In 1981 he formed his Pied Piper Quintet, which featured the pianist Ralph Sutton. He made many recordings in Europe and Japan and helped to discover and draw attention to several future jazz stars.

He and Louise Tobin later settled in north Texas. They were forced to move a few years ago when their house was destroyed in a fire, but stayed in the area.

Steve Voce