Joe Bushkin

Joseph "Joe" Bushkin was born on November 7, 1916, in New York City, and died on November 3, 2004, in Santa Barbara, California, of pneumonia. A jazz pianist and lyricist, he maintained a Broadway career spanning from 1949 to 1976, with credits including Swinging on a Star, Bing Crosby on Broadway, and The Rat Race.

Bushkin's early professional life centered on New York City dance bands, where he played both trumpet and piano. Among his first engagements was Frank LaMare's Band at the Roseland Ballroom in Brooklyn. He joined Bunny Berigan's band in 1935, worked with Eddie Condon between 1936 and 1937, and also performed alongside Max Kaminsky and Joe Marsala before returning to Berigan in 1938. In 1939 he departed to join Muggsy Spanier's Ragtime Band.

Through the late 1930s and into the late 1940s, Bushkin collaborated with Tommy Dorsey and Eddie Condon across records, radio, and television. During his time with Dorsey's band in 1941, he co-wrote "Oh! Look at Me Now" with John DeVries, a song that became Frank Sinatra's second hit and one of his most enduring recordings, following "Polka Dots and Moonbeams." Bushkin also contributed to the soundtrack of the 1942 Bing Crosby film Road to Morocco, in addition to various commercial recording sessions.

During World War II, military service in the United States Army Air Corps returned Bushkin to the trumpet. Before deploying to the South Pacific, he directed music for Moss Hart's Broadway production Winged Victory, a wartime morale-booster, for six months. He also recorded with Lester Young on piano during this period. Following the war, he worked with Louis Armstrong, Bud Freeman, and Benny Goodman.

On June 7, 1953, Bushkin performed with Louis Armstrong and his All Stars, with Velma Middleton on vocals, at the ninth Cavalcade of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles. The event, produced by Leon Hefflin, Sr., also featured Roy Brown and his Orchestra, Don Tosti and His Mexican Jazzmen, Earl Bostic, Nat "King" Cole, and Shorty Rogers and his Orchestra.

Among his television appearances, Bushkin was featured on a thirty-minute Judy Garland musical special produced for the General Electric Theater, which aired on CBS on April 8, 1956. According to author Coyne Steven Sanders, Bushkin served as a last-minute replacement for pianist Leonard Pennario and accompanied Garland on "Last Night When We Were Young" and "Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries."

After a period of semi-retirement, Bushkin resumed active performing when Bing Crosby invited him to tour together in 1976 and 1977. He also appeared on Crosby's 1975 Christmas television special alongside Fred Astaire. In 1984, Bushkin performed in a concert series at New York's St. Regis hotel marking his 50 years in show business.

Bushkin married Francice Oliver Netcher, the elder sister of socialite Mollie Wilmot. The couple had four daughters — Nina Judson, Maria Stave, Tippy Bushkin, and Christina Merrill — and lived on a ranch in Santa Barbara, California. His widow died in 2011 at the age of 91.