Alfred Alvarez; Jazz Trumpeter

Alfred (Chico) Alvarez, trumpeter with the brassy, sometimes aggravating but always innovative Stan Kenton band in its salad days of the 1940s, and more recently a labor activist for musicians in Nevada, is dead.

A family spokesman said Monday that Alvarez was 72 when he died Saturday in Las Vegas.

Born in Montreal and raised in Los Angeles, Alvarez studied trumpet, violin and piano before joining Kenton in 1941, when he was 21 and the Kenton organization was playing its formative engagements at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa.

He became a featured player in a band that included or would include Eddie Safranski on bass, Shelly Manne on drums, Kai Winding and Milt Bernhart on trombones, Bob Cooper and Stan Getz on saxes and Kenton on piano.

With the exception of Army service from 1943 to 1946 and a few months with Charlie Barnet and Red Norvo when the Kenton band disbanded briefly, Alvarez spent nearly all his professional career with Kenton.

He left the band in 1951, opened a music store in Hermosa Beach and played trumpet and arranged for various Latin bands.

In 1958 he moved to Las Vegas, where he accompanied Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and others at their hotel shows and became a business agent for the local musicians union. He also served as president of the Allied Arts Council and a gubernatorial appointee to the Nevada State Council on the Arts.

He is survived by two sons, Gary and Phillip, a daughter, Faith, and six grandchildren.