John Hubbard Beecher

Bands

• Lee Williams Orchestra
• Little John Beecher and His Orchestra — Beecher founded and served as its bandleader throughout the 1950s. The orchestra was a nonet plus a featured vocalist territory band. Beecher was a large man, weighing 300 pounds in 1955. He promoted the catchphrase "THE BAND with the big front." Beecher booked his gigs through the National Orchestra Service, a territory band agency based out of Omaha, Nebraska. Royce Stoenner, who had been an executive at NOS, left the agency in 1959 to become a partner with the Dave Brumitt Agency, a territory band booking agency in Atlanta. John Beecher followed Stoenner to Georgia and started working through his agency there. Shortly thereafter in 1959, the band ended.
• The Cavaliers Orchestra — Jimmy Fuller founded this group in 1946 and served as bandleader until 1976. Having played trumpet with the Cavaliers since 1973, John Beecher became its second bandleader in the spring of 1976. The Orchestra, based in Columbus, Georgia, is still in existence today.

  Original compositions

• "Mischa Fischa," by Dirk Fischer, nonet, cool jazz, up-tempo
• Cinoton, by Dirk Fischer nonet
• "Coffee-Flavored Kisses," by Dirk Fischer; The 1966 hit song by The Monkees, "Last Train to Clarksville," contained the phrase "coffee-flavored kisses." This was the title and first line of a song earlier written by Dirk Fischer, brother of Clare Fischer. Fischer wrote it for Little John Beecher's Orchestra while he was a member. "Coffee-Flavored Kisses" is constructed over the chord changes of "Take the A Train." The band played it almost every night. In the mid- to late 1950s, the orchestra played it at nearly every appearance. It was sung by a Kansas City jazz singer named Betty Jordan ''.

  Family history

Music library

Former members of John Beecher's Orchestra

• 1959–1960: Travis Wayne Jenkins, tenor sax
• 1950s: Betty Jordan, vocals, aka Betty Hanson
• Stewart "Dirk" Fischer
• Richard "Dick" Vaughn Busey, tenor sax
• Russ Long, piano ''
• Robert Fisher
• Mel Ross, sax
• Carl Greene, horn
• Johnny Morre
• Larry Brown
• Robert Hampson, baritone sax
• 1954: Bill Porter, drums
• 1958 Don Farrar, Bass