Billy Butterfield

Billy Butterfield
Billy Butterfield in the Artie Shaw band, 1940
Background information
Birth name	Charles William Butterfield
Born	(1917-01-14)January 14, 1917 Middletown, Ohio, U.S.
Died	March 18, 1988(1988-03-18) (aged 71) North Palm Beach, Florida, U.S.
Genres	Jazz, swing, big band
Occupation(s)	Musician
Instruments	Trumpet, flugelhorn, cornet

Charles William "Billy" Butterfield (January 14, 1917 – March 18, 1988) was an American jazz bandleader, trumpeter, flugelhornist and cornetist.

Butterfield was born Charles William Butterfield in Middletown, Ohio and attended high school in Wyoming. Although he studied medicine at Transylvania College, he preferred playing in bands, and he studied cornet with Frank Simon. He discontinued his studies after finding success as a trumpeter.

Early in his career he played in the band of Austin Wylie. He gained attention working with Bob Crosby (1937–1940), and later performed with Artie Shaw, Les Brown, and Benny Goodman.

While with Bob Crosby, he initially played third trumpet behind the legendary Charlie Spivak and Yank Lawson. When those two left Crosby to join Tommy Dorsey's band in 1938, Butterfield was given the opportunity to solo on a song written by Crosby bassist Bob Haggart, initially titled "I'm Free." When lyrics were added, it became the well-known standard "What's New?". Crosby's version, featuring Butterfield's brilliant performance, is regarded as one of the great recordings of the Big Band era.

On October 7, 1940, during his brief stay with Artie Shaw's orchestra, Butterfield performed what has been described as a "legendary trumpet solo" on the hit song "Star Dust". Between 1943 and 1947, taking a break to serve in the United States armed forces, Butterfield led his own orchestra. On September 20, 1944, Capitol recorded the jazz standard "Moonlight In Vermont", which featured a vocal by Margaret Whiting and trumpet solos (both open and muted) by Butterfield. The liner notes from the CD Capitol from the Vaults, Volume 2, "Vine Street Divas" indicate that, although Billy Butterfield & His Orchestra were credited with the song, it was really the Les Brown band recording under the name of Billy Butterfield because Brown was under contract to another label at the time.