Irving Peskin (aka as Isadore N. Parker),
Trumpeter, Composer, Arranger and Teacher Extraordinaire
January 22, 1908, Worcester MA - February 4, 2011, Los Angeles CA



The Many Names of Irving Peskin.


- Irving Peskin is listed in his birth record as Israel N. Peskin, son of Hyman Peskin, occupation tailor, and Kate Segal, both born in Russia. [1]
- In the 1910 US Census for Worcester Ward 4, MA he is listed as Ezy Peskin, age 2, born in Massachusetts, living at 299 Pleasant Street,  Worcester City, MA with his father Hyman, age 29, born in Russia, married for six years, immigrated to the US in 1904,occupation tailor own business; his mother Creashy, age 30, married for six years, immigrated to the US in 1907; brother Charley, age 5, born in Russia; and sister Susie, age 1, born in Massachusetts. [2]
- In the 1920 US Census for Worcester Ward 4, MA he is listed as Isadore Peskin, age 12, born in Massachusetts, living at 46 Columbia Street,  Worcester City, MA with his father Hyman, age 38, born in Russia, immigrated to the US in 1904, became a US citizen in 1910, occupation tailor in a department store; his mother Clara, age 36,
immigrated to the US in 1904, became a US citizen in 1910; brother Charles, age 14 and sister Susie, age 11, both born in Massachusetts; and grandmother Sarah Sigel, age 60, born in Russia, immigrated to the US in 1904. [3]
- In high school he was known as Irving Peskin. He and brother Charles had a band known as Irving Peskin and his orchestra, "The Boy Wonder Cornetist." [4]

- By the late 1920s, the Peskin family changed its last name to Parker.  The 1930 US Census for the city of Beverly Hills, Los Angeles County,  CA has a listing for Irving Parker, age 22, living at 434 N. Oakhurst St, born in Massachusetts, parents born in Rusia, occupation musician with orchestra.
- There are listings for Irving Parker in incoming passenger records for 1932, 1933, born January 20 or 21, 1908 in Worcester, MA, with a Washington DC address in the US. [5, 6]
- According the New York City Marriage Records, On Jan 6, 1934, Irving Parker age 26, son of Hyman Parker and Clare Siegal [sic] married Ruth Schwartz, age 24, born in New York, NY, daughter of Abraham Schwartz and Anna Bernstein. [7]
- In the 1940 US Census for Los Angeles, CA he is listed as Irving Parker, age 32, born in Massachusetts, occupation musican private business. [8]
- According to the US World War Two Enlistment Records, Irving Parker born in 1908 in Massachusetts enlisted for military service in Los Angeles on May 25, 1942. His civilian occupation is given as musician and teacher of music. [9]
- His obituaries in the Los Angeles Times, Variety and elsewhere give his name as Isadore Nathaniel (Niel) Parker. [10, 11]
-
His gravestone gives his name as Irving Niel Parker.

 



Obituary in the Los Angeles Times of February 19 to 20, 2011.

Provides a useful biographical sketch of  Irving Peskin.

PARKER, Isadore Nathaniel (I Niel) Born Worcester, MA on January 20, 1908. Died Feb. 4, 2011 in Los Angeles at the age of 103. Niel Parker had a long multifaceted and distinguished career. He started trumpet and cornet lessons at the age of eight, later studying with George Mager of the Boston Symphony. In high school he formed the Peskin Orchestra with his brother Charles, who played clarinet and saxophone. He met Jerry Colonna in 1922, played with him in Boston area orchestras, and then went with Colonna to New York where they performed in jam sessions at the Roseland with major musicians, including Bix Beiderbeck, and Tommy Dorsey. Over the course of his career Niel worked with many notable orchestras and bands such as Meyer Davis, Sam Lanin, Glenn Miller, the Dorsey Brothers, Joe Venuti, Eddy Duchin, Henry Busse, George Olson, Xavier Cugat, Benny Goodman, Irving Aaronson, Paul Whiteman, and Barney Sorkin, among others. He joined George Olson, touring in a variety of performances, including Ziegfield shows, clubs and theaters. Among his compositions are "Chinese Jumble" and "State and Madison Stomp" which were published by Denton & Haskins Co. and recorded on Edison Records. (Thomas Edison supervised the first recording.) He also made recordings for RCA and Gennet Records. At Columbia Records he did the first recording of "I can't give you anything but love" with Ruby Bloom and the Star of Blackbirds of 1928. In New York he worked on many radio shows, including Jack Renard's first Lucky Strike program, Jack Benny/Olsen, Eveready Program, and Eddie Cantor's Show on WABC, NBC, CBS and other stations. After coming to Los Angeles, he played for many studios, such as Columbia, RKO, United Artists and MGM. He worked under Georgie Stoll, Herbert Stothert, Franz Waxman, Alfred Newman, and others. He also wrote and arranged music for "Fox Movietone Follies of 1929" and appeared in scenes with comedian El Brendel. He coached Jackie Cooper for his role in "Man with a Horn" and did a six month tour with the Kate Smith Revue. In 1942 he toured with the Hollywood Caravan for Army-Navy Relief, following which he enlisted in the Army Air Forces. For about 3 1/2 years he organized music for his unit in the States and overseas and did programs for the Armed Forces Radio in Hawaii. After leaving the service he continued performing, with Red Skelton, Sinatra ("Old Gold"), Bergen/McCarthy, and others. He also attended Los Angeles State College where he earned a B.A. in Liberal Arts with High Honors and an M.A. in Vocational Counseling & Guidance and did graduate work at Harvard. He then taught in Culver City and Hawthorne schools for four years. After that he worked in the aerospace industry at Douglas Aircraft Co and Aerojet General Corp. all the while continuing his education taking courses related to aerospace. He was also proficient in several languages. On September 15, 1989, he received a Diamond Circle Award from the Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters for his many distinguished years in radio and television. In 2003 he was interviewed by Jerry Fabris, Curator of the Edison National Historical Site in W. Orange, NJ, about his Edison recordings in the 1920s. The interviews were played on WFMU (91.1 FM) in Jersey City, NJ on Sept. 9th and 23rd, 2003 for the program Thomas Edison's Attic and can be heard on http://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/8964 The first program featured a piece composed by him in 1926 and published in 1928 under the name Irving Peskin, and recorded by the California Ramblers. Besides his music, he enjoyed many activities. He loved to fly, and held a California pilot's license. He was an avid golfer, and he enjoyed deep-sea fishing, traveling around the world, and reading. He loved all animals and found everyone he knew and met to be beautiful. He was preceded in death by his parents, sister, brother, former wife Charlotte Marilyn Abelson and stepson Arthur Lance Aaron. He is survived by his longtime partner Hannah M. Walker, nephews Theodore and Robert Parker, Carl and Stuart Levin, niece Dorothy Parker, and several great nieces and nephews. A memorial service was held at Hillside Memorial Park, Sunday, February 13, 2011 at 1 p.m. In lieu of flowers donations may be made to the Anti-defamation League in memory of Irving Niel Parker .


The Early Life of Irving Peskin - Worcester's Bix Beiderbecke. By Chet Williamson.

Very important, highly documented account of Peskin's life during his first two decades.
http://jazzriffing.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-early-life-of-irving-peskin.html

Some additional information in
http://jazzriffing.blogspot.com/2014/01/when-jazz-happened-here-birth-of-music.html

Irving Peskin in the Bixography Forum.

Links to all postings in the Forum.
http://www.network54.com/Forum/27140/search?searchterm=peskin&sort=date


Irving Peskin Discography, 1927-1929.

Prepared by Malcolm Walton and Jonathan Horne. Work in progress. Some of the recordings listed are from Irving Peskin's 1928 diary, courtesy of Hannah Walker.
Prior to this discography, recordings known to have included Irving Peskin on trumpet were few in number. Some Piccadilly Players tracks, some Oreste, and some George Herlihy was pretty well the extent of it.
This new discography of Irving Peskin's New York recordings owes its existence, in the first instance,  to the 2003 interview  of Irving by Jerry Fabris, for the Thomas Edison Attic Radio Programme. Following this, we contacted Jerry  to enquire whether he had  contact  details for Irving's long-time friend Hannah Walker. He spoke to her and it was agreed that we could make contact. She very kindly agreed to photocopy Irving's 1928 work diary, which contained, among other things,  all the record dates he took part in  that year. From that, using the Johnson and Shirley Dance Band Discography (the five volume sequel to Rust), and the On Line Discographical Project, it was eventually possible to pin-point the majority of 1928 tracks that he recorded. Quite often, the only clue in the diary was along the lines of "date for Gennet, 9AM". The detective work that Jon and I had to do was not inconsequential! For example, we spent weeks trying to identify a session that he noted in his diary, included Don Murray and Bill Trone. One of the obstacles was that the dates in Rust are sometimes approximate. We can now correct these dates with certainty.
Having created the 1928 portion of the discography, and knowing that Irving started his recording career late 1926 and moved to Los Angeles in mid 1929, we were determined to establish as many probable Peskin recordings as we could during this overall time period by checking recordings made by bands he was known to record with on a regular basis, and to aurally identify his presence. This is an ongoing project and the discography will be updated periodically. One of the biggest disappointments so far, is the almost total non-existence of copies of Carl Fenton's New Yorkers Gennet recordings. Irving recorded prolifically for this outfit and is certain to have been a featured soloist. Any information from readers which will lead to finding any of these elusive sides will be much appreciated.
The most significant discovery to date, due to our research methodology, has been the positive identification of  the elusive Birmingham Breakdown by the Dixie Dance Demons as Irving Peskin with George Hall's Orchestra.  This was only made possible by obtaining tracks with adjacent matrix numbers,  where we knew Peskin to be present, and establishing that the trumpet player was one and the same. For this we owe a lot of thanks to the On Line Discographical Project, and to Jon's conviction, right from the start, that this just had to be Peskin.
The green shading indicates that we have, in our possession,  either a copy of the 78, a commercial CD issue, or a You Tube download.

http://bixbeiderbecke.com/IRVING PESKIN DISCOGRAPHY.xlr   The xlr file was created by Malcolm Walton and Jonathan Horne.

http://bixbeiderbecke.com/IRVINGPESKINDISCOGRAPHY.pdf   the pdf file was reformatted from the xlr file, courtesy of Nick Dellow.

Irving Peskin Interviews by Jerry Fabris.

Jerry was the host of the "Thomas Edison Attic" radio programs (2003-2007) on WFMU of Jersey City, NJ and  is the curator of the audio collections at the Edison National Historic Site of West Orange NJ. The interviews are fascinating and highly instructive. They last for about one hour

Sep 9, 2003. An interview of Irving Peskin, 1920s NYC trumpeter, part 1.
https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/8804

Sep 23, 2003. An interview of Irving Peskin, 1920s NYC trumpeter, part 2.

https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/8964

This webpage was uploaded on September 5, 2017 by Albert Haim ahaim@bixography.com  



















[1] https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GRKQ-971Z?mode=g&i=45&cc=1727033
[2] https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-XXDF-BY?mode=g&i=986&cc=1536925
[3] https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9RXR-9D
[4] http://jazzriffing.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-early-life-of-irving-peskin.html
[5] https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-95D9-24Z?mode=g&i=213&cc=1923888
[6] https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-G5D9-Z5H?mode=g&i=378&cc=1923888
[7] https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:24DL-392
[8] https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QSQ-G9MT-JSZ9?mode=g&i=24&cc=2000219
[9] https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KMFM-D4F
[10] http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/latimes/obituary.aspx?pid=148735807
[11] http://variety.com/2011/music/news/trumpeter-isadore-nathaniel-parker-dies-at-103-1118032627/