Jim Warren


With a career that spanned the 20th century, a natural ability to swing, and a great sense of humour, it’s no wonder that trumpeter Jim Warren was one of the most popular and respected musicians in the Auckland jazz scene.

At his 80th birthday – 18 years before he died in 2016 – his wife Madeline gave him a new trumpet. In the years that followed, Warren gave his “lip” a rest, and preferred to play Duke Ellington standards on his upright piano.

An advert for the Theo Walters Band at Auckland's Peter Pan Cabaret in the late 1930s. By this stage his entire band was New Zealanders, including the "crooning drummer" Johnnie Madden. 
Chips Healy with ‘a swell outfit’, the dance band he formed at the RNZAF base at Hobsonville, 1941. From left: Jim Warren, Nolan Rafferty, Bruce Craighead, Gerry Horsup, Baden Brown, Chips Healy and Dick Morris.
Photo credit: Jim Warren collection
Jamming with Jim Warren on the ferry to Waiheke are Jim McAllum on guitar and Lloyd Sly on piano-accordion. They are on their way to Atwater's annual picnic. Sly's family founded the business Sly's Pianos in 1914, and it still exists today. A multi-instrumentalist, Sly was most proficient on piano, organ, oboe, flute and piano-accordion; before the war he was a member of Epi Shalfoon’s band in Auckland.
Photo credit: Jim Warren collection
Crombie Murdoch at the piano for a 1946 session with, from left, Frank Gurr, Jim Warren and Doug Kelly.
Photo credit: Photo by Peter Lishman/Jim Warren collection
Ted Croad’s band at the Orange Coronation Hall, Auckland, early 1940s. From left: Marge Sim, piano; Ted Croad; George Campbell, bass; Eddie Croad, drums; Tommy Simpson, teno; Phil Campbell, trumpet; Gordon Lanigan, alto; unknown trumpet; Lou Campbell, trumpet; Len Lanigan, trumpet; unknown trombone; Chas Hoffman, tenor.
Photo credit: Jim Warren collection
Ted Croad’s band at the Orange Coronation Hall, Auckland, late 1940s. From left: Crombie Murdoch, piano; Pat McMinn, vocals; Eddie Croad, drums; Ted Croad; George Campbell, bass; Tommy Simpson, tenor; unknown trumpet; Jim Watters, tenor; Lou Campbell, trumpet; Jim Warren, trumpet; Gordon Lanigan, alto; unknown trombone and tenor.
Photo credit: Jim Warren collection
In the late 1930s visiting band Sammy Lee and his Americanadians impressed New Zealand musicians with the biggest swing sound they had yet encountered. Lee later became a nightclub owner in Sydney's notorious King's Cross scene. In this photo from early 1940 he is at the drum kit with, from left, Auckland musicians Jim Warren, Roy Lester and John MacKenzie, at the Masonic Hall, Queen Street, Auckland. 
Photo credit: Jim Warren collection
A jam session on Karangahape Road, Auckland, c. 1940. From left, Neil Thurgate, Jim Foley, Al Smith, Jim Warren, Red Logie (a visitor, holding Warren’s trombone), Phil Campbell and Tiki Roberts. 
Photo credit: Jim Warren collection
Theo Walters with the RNZAF showband on Bougainville, 1944. Standing from left, Jim Warren, Cliff Inns, Doug Kelly, Roy Miller, Tia Bennett, Bill Egerton, Peter Glen, Theo Walters, Bob Girvan, Nip Spring, Jack McCaw, Keith Harris, Pat Watters, Frank Robb. In front, from left: Des Lavin, Alf Ramsay, Fred Coleman and Bill Shardlow. 
Photo credit: Jim Warren collection
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