Vince Giordano (born March 11, 1952, in Brooklyn) is an American saxophonist and leader of the New York-based Nighthawks Orchestra. He specializes in jazz of the 1920s and 1930s and his primary instrument is the bass saxophone. Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks have played on television and film soundtracks, including the HBO series Boardwalk Empire and Woody Allen's musical comedy film Everyone Says I Love You. He also appeared in the 2023 film Killers of the Flower Moon as a radio show bandleader.

Music career

When he was five, Giordano listened to music of the 1920s on a wind-up Victrola. When he was 15, he played string bass and bass saxophone professionally and took lessons from Bill Challis to learn about writing arrangements like the dance bands of the 1920s and 30s. He performed with New Paul Whiteman Orchestra, the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Band, he New York Jazz Repertory Company, and Leon Redbone. He plays bass saxophone, string bass and tuba with his band, The Nighthawks, which plays music from the early days of jazz, such as Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington. Lending his musical and acting talents to Francis Ford Coppola's film The Cotton Club led to working with Dick Hyman's Orchestra in half a dozen Woody Allen soundtracks, then acting as bass player, most notably in Sean Penn's band in Allen's Sweet and Lowdown. Giordano and the Nighthawks have appeared on soundtracks for the movies The Aviator, Finding Forrester, The Good Shepherd, and Public Enemies, the HBO mini-series Mildred Pierce, and the HBO series Boardwalk Empire.

Collecting

Giordano is a music historian and collector with more than 60,000 scores in his collection. He is listed as "a friend of Thornton Hagert and the Vernacular Music Research's archive of music" in The Devil's Horn: The Story of the Saxophone by Michael Segall (2006). In 2011, he was featured in the PBS series Michael Feinstein's American Songbook, in which he reveals his treasures from the Great American Songbook. His collection includes big band arrangements, silent movie scores, 78-rpm discs, piano rolls, and a Victrola.

Performing

Giordano and his band have been guests on Garrison Keillor's variety radio show, A Prairie Home Companion. Turner Classic Movie Film Festival spotlighted him at Hollywood's Music Box, where the band performed vintage movie music, in addition to accompanying The Cameraman, a Buster Keaton silent film shown at the Egyptian Theater. In the summer of 2012, the band performed at the Newport Jazz Festival, Music Mountain, and the Litchfield Jazz Festival. In 2016 a feature-length documentary, "There's a Future in the Past", about Giordano and his band was released.

Awards and honors

Selected discography

Soundtrack appearances With Leon Redbone With Marty Grosz With Back Bay Ramblers With others