Conrad J. Gozzo was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

 player born in New Britain Connecticut on February 6, 1922. Gozzo was a member of the NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 Hollywood staff orchestra at the time of his death on October 8, 1964. He died at the age of 42 of a heart attack.

Gozzo, lead trumpeter on the Glen Gray

Glen Gray

Glen Gray Knoblauch, better known as Glen Gray, was a jazz saxophonist and leader of the Casa Loma Orchestra....

  Stan Kenton and Harry James

Harry James

Henry Haag “Harry” James was a trumpeter who led a jazz swing band during the Big Band Era of the 1930s and 1940s. He was especially known among musicians for his astonishing technical proficiency as well as his superior tone.-Biography:He was born in Albany, Georgia, the son of a bandleader of a...

 "remakes", recorded extensively with arrangers Van Alexander

Van Alexander

Van Alexander is an American bandleader, arranger, and composer.Alexander led bands and arranged from high school, and studied composition in college. He landed a job selling arrangements to Chick Webb in the middle of the 1930s...

, Nelson Riddle

Nelson Riddle

Nelson Smock Riddle, Jr. was an American arranger, composer, bandleader and orchestrator whose career stretched from the late 1940s to the mid 1980s...

, Billy May

Billy May

William E. "Billy" May was an American composer, arranger and trumpeter. He composed film and television music, for The Green Hornet , Batman , and Naked City and collaborated on films, such as Pennies from Heaven , and orchestrated Cocoon, and Cocoon: The Return among...

, Ray Conniff

Ray Conniff

Joseph Raymond Conniff was an American bandleader and arranger best known for his Ray Conniff Singers during the 1960s.-Biography:...

, Jerry Fielding

Jerry Fielding

Jerry Fielding was an American radio, record, film and television composer, conductor, and musical director.-Childhood and education:...

 and Shorty Rogers

Shorty Rogers

Milton “Shorty” Rogers , born Milton Rajonsky in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, was one of the principal creators of West Coast jazz. He played both the trumpet and flugelhorn, and was in demand for his skills as an arranger. Rogers worked first as a professional musician with Will Bradley and...

, and also with performers Dean Martin

Dean Martin

Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...

 and Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra

Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...

. Gozzo played first trumpet on all of the recordings of composer Henry Mancini

Henry Mancini

Henry Mancini was an American composer, conductor and arranger, best remembered for his film and television scores. He won a record number of Grammy Awards , plus a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in 1995...

. He routinely performed on many major live television shows which were broadcast on the NBC network, including the Dinah Shore

Dinah Shore

Dinah Shore was an American singer, actress, and television personality...

 Show (1955 through 1964). Gozzo also performed on motion picture soundtrack

Soundtrack

A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...

s including The Glenn Miller Story, The Benny Goodman Story, Bye Bye Birdie, Call Me Madam, Ben-Hur

Ben-Hur (1959 film)

Ben-Hur is a 1959 American epic film directed by William Wyler and starring Charlton Heston in the title role, the third film adaptation of Lew Wallace's 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. The screenplay was written by Karl Tunberg, Gore Vidal, and Christopher Fry. The score was composed by...

and Cleopatra

Cleopatra (1963 film)

Cleopatra is a 1963 British-American-Swiss epic drama film directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. The screenplay was adapted by Sidney Buchman, Ben Hecht, Ranald MacDougall, and Mankiewicz from a book by Carlo Maria Franzero. The film starred Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Roddy...

. He also performed on the Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...

 two-record set on Verve

Verve Records

Verve Records is an American jazz record label now owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded by Norman Granz in 1956, absorbing the catalogues of his earlier labels, Clef Records and Norgran Records , and material which had been licensed to Mercury previously.-Jazz and folk origins:The Verve...

 (Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Harold Arlen Songbook

Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Harold Arlen Songbook

Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Harold Arlen Songbook is a 1961 album by the American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, with a studio orchestra conducted and arranged by Billy May...

).

Gozzo was sometimes referred to as "The Goz" and was considered by many colleagues as being an exceptionally strong trumpeter with a well-developed range and tonal quality. He is credited by some as having shaped the lead trumpet concept of the swing era

Swing Era

The Swing era was the period of time when big band swing music was the most popular music in the United States. Though the music had been around since the late 1920s and early 1930s, being played by black bands led by such artists as Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Benny Moten, Ella Fitzgerald,...

 which is characterized by a large and robust tonality.

"Trumpeter's Prayer," was composed by Tutti Camarata

Tutti Camarata

Salvador "Tutti" Camarata was a composer, arranger and trumpeter.-Early life and career:Born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, Camarata studied music at Juilliard School in New York - a student of Bernard Wagenaar, Joseph Littau, Cesare Sodero, and Jan Meyerowitz...

 for Gozzo, as was Portrait of Trumpet by Sammy Nestico

Sammy Nestico

Samuel "Sammy" Louis Nestico is a prolific and well known composer and arranger of big band music...

.