This Day in History: 1981-09-15
Rafael Méndez, Mexican trumpeter, composer and arranger, began at age 5, played for Pancho Villa and his troops, played for President Cárdenas, traveled to the U.S. to the Midwest, began playing for several theaters in Flint and Detroit, Michigan, suffered lip injury in 1932 forcing him to return home where his father helped him play again, returned to U.S. and began playing in NYC and then in LA as a studio musician, made solo recordings and began touring as soloist, began to suffer asthma and sustained baseball accident which greatly limited playing in the last decades of his life, died in Encino, California.
No tags for this post.