Theodore Earl Raph was a professional trombonist who played Dixieland jazz with touring groups during the 1930s and 1940s. He recorded with the California Ramblers and Phil Napoleon and other New Yorkdance bands. He arranged music for popular radio shows, including Name That Tune. He published two books of popular American music that are still in print more than 50 years after they were first published.
Personal life
Ted Raph was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He was the son of Louis Raffiewitz and Sarah Ann Gorney, Jewish immigrants from the area of Nezhin, Ukraine, Russia. His father's surname was changed by immigration authorities during registration when he entered the U.S. In 1905, Louis was a clothier. Like other Jewish band members, such as pianist Joel Shaw and drummer Smith Howard whose real names were Joel Schwartz and Sal Horowitz, Raph changed his name legally from Jehial Isadore Raph to Theodore Earl Raph on March 24, 1930. He married Janet Hughes and later, Marion McGuire. He and McGuire had one son, Alan Raph, who has become a noted bass trombonist, composer, and conductor. After McGuire died in 1958, Raph married Jane Beasley.
Professional career
In the eastern U.S. during the 1920s, Raph played Dixieland trombone with touring musicians such as Phil Napoleon, The Emperors, The California Ramblers, The Goofus Five and Their Orchestra, and Ermine Calloway. Raph composed and arranged for big bands in the 1930s. He served in the U.S. Army from 1943–1945 in the Special Services Division at the Signal Corps Photographic Center conducting, composing, and arranging music for movie shorts, transcriptions, and radio shows. The photographic center on Long Island in Astoria, New York, had been converted from thirteen buildings originally owned by Paramount Pictures Company, including a sound stage and a complete studio built in the 1930s. Raph arranged music for Name That Tuneon the radio from 1952–1953 and on TV from 1953–1959. He followed that with arranging for the television showYours for a Song from 1961–1963. He conducted for Stop the Music, an American radio show and television quiz show.
Publications
Raph published two collections of sheet music in the 1960s which contained easy piano arrangements, guitar chords, and lyrics: The American Song Treasury: 100 Favorites, and Songs We Sang, a Treasury of American Popular Sheet Music.
