Cliff
Stark
(Retired) Lead/Jazz Trombonist, Las Vegas, Nevada.
Cliff Stark was born in Riverside, California ( USA ) on December
21st, 1937.
After studying piano and violin (neither of which he was fond
of) he was playing string bass in the Central Junior High School
Orchestra. While in Junior High, he went to see a concert by the
Riverside Polytechnic High School Concert Band, and he knew his
destiny.
His Junior High Orchestra teacher, Bernice Richmond, stopped by
Cliff's house with a trombone in a case. She took it out, showed
Cliff how to put it together, and went over to the piano and played
an F above middle C. She asked Cliff if he could play that note.
That F was the first note Cliff played, and he never looked back
until January of 1976 when he was stricken with a left facial
neuroma that required an operation which permanently paralyzed
the left side of his face, but saved his life. In the intervening
time, he became first chair of the Riverside Poly High School
Band, and won a music scholarship to Arizona State University,
which he turned down because he wanted to be a trombone player
rather than a music teacher.
Cliff
Stark worked (for years) at:
Caesars'
Palace,
The
Desert Inn,
Flamingo
Hotel,
Tropicana
hotels
in Las Vegas.
Cliff worked with: Airmen
of Note,
(USAF
Band),
Frank
Sinatra,
Tommy Turk, Bennie Green, Carl
Fontana,
Bill
Harris, Bob Fitzpatrick, Frank
Rosolino,
Jim Trimble, Dave Wheeler, Bill Rogers, Bill Smiley, Marty Harrell,
Dick
Nash,
Bill Tole, Bobby
Shew,
Archie LeCoque, Sammy Nestico, Milt Bernhart, and with with Si
Zentner at
the Tropicana
Hotel.
While still in his teens, he worked professionally with a Pee
Wee Hunt style Dixieland Band at a night club in San Bernardino,
California called The Bankers' Club. He had to obtain permission
from the vice squad in San Bernardino to work in the club because
he was underage for a liquor establishment. While in High School,
Cliff studied with the lead trombone player at Paramount Studios,
Tommy Bassett, who had a ranch in Riverside. Tommy would let Cliff
go along on some of the studio dates to watch. Cliff also worked
in a Latin band, "The Raul Sanchez Orchestra" with players
like Dominic Felicetta, Louis Valizan, and Ray Ashe.
Cliff
worked in a music store in San Bernardino and was responsible
for ordering some of the records.
He heard an album called, "The Brothers Nash" featuring
Ted Nash on all the woodwinds, and Dick Nash on trombone.
He also ordered the Dick Nash recording of "Nirvana"
with the Ken Hanna orchestra.
Cliff then looked up Dick's name in the Los Angeles Musicians'
Union directory and called Dick and asked if he could possibly
study with him. Dick accepted Cliff as a student, and every week,
Cliff would put his trombone on his motorcycle and ride in to
Tarzana, California where he and Dick would play duets, swim,
and then play some more. One of the very highest points in Cliff's
life was when Dick Nash invited Cliff to a private party at Dick's
house where the guests were:
Frank Rosolino, Urbie Green, Billy Byers, Dave Wells, Bob Fitzpatrick,
Gil Falco, Lew McCreary, Paul Tanner, Harold Diner, Jim Priddy,
Tommy Pederson, Vern Friley, John Halliburton, Pete Carpenter,
Dick Lief, Lloyd Ulyate, Ray Kline, Tommy Shepard, Hoyt Bohannon,
Barney Liddel, Kenny Trimble, and Bill Moffitt.
Cliff Stark (top row 4th from the right) with the
Airmen of
Note
Being still too young to play professionally, Cliff was watching
Dick Nash playing in the band of a local TV show.
Cliff walked across the street to an Air Force recruiting office
and signed up. When he returned to the TV studio where Dick was
playing, the whole band played "The Air Force Song"
for him. Cliff was sent to the Strategic Air Command Headquarters
Band in Omaha, Nebraska upon completion of his basic training.
He was featured with that band with his solos of "Night Train"
and "Street Scene" which were arranged especially for
him. After a couple of years with that band, a vacancy in the
lead chair of "The Airmen of Note", the official United
States Air Force Dance Band opened up and a guitar player with
that band, David Mendenhall, who knew Cliff, recommended him for
the job.Cliff was flown to meet the band at a performance in the
midwestern part of the country where he auditioned "live"
and was accepted.
This was in 1960. Cliff later occupied both the lead and jazz
chairs of The Airmen of Note.
Tired of the endless traveling schedule, Cliff decided to not
make a career out of the Air Force, but to try his luck in Las
Vegas, Nevada, where some previous members of The Airmen of Note
were already making a good living in the house orchestras.
After moving to Las Vegas, Cliff found work at The Desert Inn
Hotel with the Carlton Hayes Orchestra playing in the main showroom.
There, in addition to working in the production show, "Hello
America", he also worked with Jimmy Durante, Rosemary Clooney,
Debbie Reynolds, Danny Kaye and Phil Harris. Phil Harris carried
his own Dixieland group with him consisting of Nick Fatool on
drums, Clyde Hurley on trumpet, Matty Matlock on clarinet, Eddie
Miller on Tenor Sax, and Cliff got to take the trombone spot!
Cliff's first love was Dixieland Jazz, and here, he was in heaven.
After Caesars' Palace opened, the Desert Inn was preparing to
go into another production show, and Charlie
Loper,
the lead trombone player at Caesars' was moving to Los Angeles.
Cliff was selected to replace Charlie, and it was at Caesars'
that Cliff got to play with almost everyone he had every heard
of. Cliff never wanted to try the studios, because he had always
enjoyed live performing. Studios didn't interest him, and he never
considered himself so much of a contemporary jazz player that
he would ever make much of a contribution to the recording industry.
Las Vegas was made to order for Cliff. Below is a partial list
of the performers that Cliff Stark worked for and with, including
some Broadway shows that were brought to Las Vegas for six month
runs at Caesars' Palace:
"Fiddler
On The Roof" Theodore Bikel, Luther Adler
"Mame" Celeste Holm, Susan Hayward
Ed Sullivan TV shows live from Caesars Palace and live from Circus
Circus
Nancy Sinatra TV Special
The Carol Burnett Show from Caesars Palace
"Lido de Paris" at the Stardust Hotel
"Casino de Paris" at the Dunes Hotel
"Folies Bergere" at the Tropicana Hotel
"Music Man", "Promises, Promises" and "Hello,
Dolly" at the Union Plaza Hotel
Frank
Sinatra, Nancy Sinatra, Andy Williams, The Osmond Brothers, Shirley
MacLaine, Juliet Prowse, Milton Berle,
Judy Garland, Ella Fitgerald, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis Jr. Billy
Eckstine, Anthony Newley.
Cliff
Stark with René
Laanen (Las Vegas, June 2001)
this
site is made by René
Laanen
