Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, between nightclub engagements, Rosolino was active in many Los Angeles recording studios where he performed with such notables as Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Tony Bennett, Peggy Lee, Mel Tormé, Michel Legrand, and Quincy Jones. In the mid-to-late 1960s he and fellow trombonist Mike Barone, billed as "Trombones Unlimited," recorded for Liberty Records several albums of pop-style arrangements of current hits, such as the 1968 album Grazing in the Grass. He can also be seen performing with Shelly Manne's group in the film I Want to Live! (1958) starring Susan Hayward, and also in Sweet Smell of Success (1957) with Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis. He was a regular on The Steve Allen Show and a guest artist on The Tonight Show and The Merv Griffin Show. Rosolino was a talented vocalist, renowned for his wild form of scat-singing, notably on Gene Krupa's hit record, "Lemon Drop".
During the 1970s, Rosolino performed and toured with Quincy Jones and the Grammy Award winning group Supersax.
That article, headed The Joker: Frank Rosolino appeared in Gene Lees' 1988 collection of essays and reminiscences Meet Me at Jim and Andy's: Jazz Musicians and Their World.
Lees noted an incident when he and his wife were traveling by bus to Denver after an enjoyable weekend of music in Colorado Springs. Rosolino and the woman he was living with, Diane, were in the seat behind them . . . and Rosolino – whose third wife and mother to their two sons had committed suicide – was talking about “killing himself and taking the two boys with him, since he could not bear the thought of leaving them behind in this world”, writes Lees.
The following day everything was fine however, Rosolino joking around in the airport, and in good spirits they flew back to LA. That was the last time Lees saw Frank Rosolino.
The following morning the joker was on the morning news. On his return, Diane went to a club but Rosolino had gone home to be with his sons aged seven and nine. When she returned home in the early hours she saw a flash of light in the boys' bedroom and as she went into the house heard a gunshot, “the one Frank put into his brain”.
He had shot his two sons as they lay sleeping and then – with no significant amounts of drugs or booze in his body – put the gun to his own head.
One of the boys died instantly, the seven-year old lingered in a coma and when he recovered he was blind.
No one will ever know what switch got flicked in Frank Rosolino's brain during those quiet hours he was at home in Van Nuys with his sleeping sons. But most agree it was as unexpected as it was unthinkable. I have a hard time listening to Frank Rosolino now...
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