Arnold Fishkind, sometimes credited as Arnold Fishkin (born July 20, 1919, Bayonne, New Jersey

Bayonne, New Jersey

Bayonne is a city in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. Located in the Gateway Region, Bayonne is a peninsula that is situated between Newark Bay to the west, the Kill van Kull to the south, and New York Bay to the east...

 - d. September 6, 1999, Palm Desert, California

Palm Desert, California

Palm Desert is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, in the Coachella Valley, approximately east of Palm Springs. The population was 48,445 at the 2010 census, up from 41,155 at the 2000 census...

) was an American jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 bassist

Double bass

The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...

 who appeared on over 100 albums.

Fishkind grew up in Freeport, Long Island

Long Island

Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...

, where he met and began a lifelong friendship with Chubby Jackson

Chubby Jackson

Greig Stewart 'Chubby' Jackson was an American jazz double-bassist and band leader.Born in New York City, Jackson began at the age of seventeen as a clarinetist, but quickly changed to bass....

. At age 7 Fishkind began learning violin, and played in "The Musical Aces", a local band of budding musicians. By age 14 he was playing bass.

Fishkind had his first professional gig with Bunny Berigan

Bunny Berigan

Rowland Bernard "Bunny" Berigan was an American jazz trumpeter who rose to fame during the swing era, but whose virtuosity and influence were shortened by a losing battle with alcoholism that ended in his early death at age 33. He composed the jazz instrumentals "Chicken and Waffles" and "Blues"...

 in 1937. Following this he played with Jack Teagarden

Jack Teagarden

Weldon Leo "Jack" Teagarden , known as "Big T" and "The Swingin' Gate", was an influential jazz trombonist, bandleader, composer, and vocalist, regarded as the "Father of Jazz Trombone".-Early life:...

 (1940–41), Van Alexander

Van Alexander

Van Alexander is an American bandleader, arranger, and composer.Alexander led bands and arranged from high school, and studied composition in college. He landed a job selling arrangements to Chick Webb in the middle of the 1930s...

, and Les Brown

Les Brown (bandleader)

Les Brown, Sr. and the Band of Renown are a big band that began in the late 1930s, initially as the group Les Brown and His Blue Devils that Brown led while a student at Duke University. He was the first president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences...

 (1941–42). His career was interrupted at this point by three years of service in the armed forces during World War II.

In mid-1946 Fishkind met and played with pianist Lennie Tristano

Lennie Tristano

Leonard Joseph Tristano was a jazz pianist, composer and teacher of jazz improvisation. He performed in the cool jazz, bebop, post bop and avant-garde jazz genres. He remains a somewhat overlooked figure in jazz history, but his enormous originality and dazzling work as an improviser have long...

 in New York, but by the Fall he left to go to Hollywood to play with Charlie Barnet

Charlie Barnet

Charles Daly Barnet was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader.His major recordings were "Skyliner", "Cherokee", "The Wrong Idea", "Scotch and Soda", "In a Mizz", and "Southland Shuffle".-Early life:...

. During this experience he played alongside Stan Getz

Stan Getz

Stanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...

. In 1947 Fishkind returned to New York City, where from 1947 to 1949 he played with Lennie Tristano, and from 1949 to 1951 he appeared on recordings with Lee Konitz

Lee Konitz

Lee Konitz is an American jazz composer and alto saxophonist born in Chicago, Illinois.Generally considered one of the driving forces of Cool Jazz, Konitz has also performed successfully in bebop and avant-garde settings...

 and on Johnny Smith

Johnny Smith

Johnny Smith is an American cool jazz and mainstream jazz guitarist.-Early years:...

's Moonlight in Vermont

Moonlight in Vermont (album)

Moonlight in Vermont is a 1952 jazz album by jazz guitarist Johnny Smith, featuring tenor saxophonist Stan Getz. The album, titled for Smith's breakthrough hit song, was the #1 Jazz Album for 1952. The album was popularly and critically well-received and has come to be regarded as an important...

. During this period he also continued to play with Charlie Barnet, and played with Benny Goodman

Benny Goodman

Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...

.

In the 1950s he found much work as a session musician

Session musician

Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...

, for radio (for example "Across the Board",) television (for example The Steve Allen Show,) and pop musicians (including Frankie Laine

Frankie Laine

Frankie Laine, born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio , was a successful American singer, songwriter, and actor whose career spanned 75 years, from his first concerts in 1930 with a marathon dance company to his final performance of "That's My Desire" in 2005...

). His career at ABC lasted fifteen years and included appearances in the Andy Williams Show in 1961. Fishkind became well known enough during this time to be mentioned by Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac

Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...

 in his novel Visions of Cody

Visions of Cody

Visions of Cody is an experimental novel by Jack Kerouac. It was written in 1951-1952, and though not published in its entirety until 1973, it had by then achieved an underground reputation...

.

Rock and Roll having decimated the market for jazz musicians in New York City, Fishkind moved from New York City back to California. In California he found work with the Dean Martin

Dean Martin

Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...

 and Bob Hope

Bob Hope

Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...

 television shows and some substitution engagements on the Tonight and Merv Griffin television shows, as well as some recording and film work. He also toured with Les Brown and Lena Horne

Lena Horne

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...

. Fishkind continued to record into the 1980s, playing with, among others, Frank Scott (musician)

Frank Scott (musician)

Frank Scott was an American musician and arranger that was a member of the Lawrence Welk orchestra. His instruments were the piano and the harpsichord....

.

Fishkind converted to Christianity after discussions with his son, Todd, and contemporary Christian music artist Keith Green

Keith Green

Keith Gordon Green was an American gospel singer, songwriter, musician, and Contemporary Christian Music artist originally from Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, New York. Beyond his music, Green is best known for his strong devotion to Christian evangelism and challenging others to the same...

. He was at first associated with the Vineyard Christian Fellowship, where he introduced trumpet player/arranger Shorty Rogers and pianist Bobby Corwin, Johnny Mercer

Johnny Mercer

John Herndon "Johnny" Mercer was an American lyricist, songwriter and singer. He is best known as a lyricist, but he also composed music. He was also a popular singer who recorded his own songs as well as those written by others...

's son-in-law, to the group. He later (1978) became an elder at Keith Green's Last Days Ministries, to whom Green dearly loved, and looked up to as a kind of father figure. Ultimately he moved to Palm Desert, California, where he was able to join the celebration of his friend Chubby Jackson's 80th birthday. In his latter years, he became an ordained minister at Family Life Church in Palm Desert.

During his career Fishkind performed swing and bebop jazz, television, jingles, and even western themed music. His documented associations included, in addition to those mentioned above,
Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...

,
Stan Hasselgard

Stan Hasselgård

Åke "Stan" Hasselgård was Swedish jazz clarinetist. Hasselgård was heavily influenced by Benny Goodman, and played swing jazz in his early years before exploring bebop shortly before his death.Hasselgård grew up in Bollnäs, Sweden, and began playing clarinet at age 16...

,
Peanuts Hucko

Peanuts Hucko

Michael Andrew "Peanuts" Hucko was an American big band musician. His primary instrument was the clarinet.-Early life and education:...

,
Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker

Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....

,
Shorty Rogers

Shorty Rogers

Milton “Shorty” Rogers , born Milton Rajonsky in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, was one of the principal creators of West Coast jazz. He played both the trumpet and flugelhorn, and was in demand for his skills as an arranger. Rogers worked first as a professional musician with Will Bradley and...

,
Butch Stone, and
Jerry Wald

Jerry Wald

Jerry Wald was an American producer and screenwriter for motion pictures and radio shows.Born Jerome Irving Wald in Brooklyn, New York, he had a brother and sons who were active in show business. Jerry began writing a radio column for the New York Evening Graphic while a student at New York...

. Although there is no mention in the record from whom he learned bass, he gave as his primary influence Jimmy Blanton

Jimmy Blanton

Jimmie Blanton was an influential American jazz double bassist. Blanton is credited with being the originator of pizzicato and bowed bass solos....

. Fishkind himself mentored
Chubby Jackson and had at least one student, bassist
Peter Blannin, who studied with him in New York in 1951.

Discography

Title	Featured Artist	Orig. Release	Label	UPC
Portrait of Bunny Berigan	Bunny Berigan	1932-37	ASV Living Era	743625506020
Conception	Miles Davis	1951	OJC	25218172622
Lullabies of Birdland	Ella Fitzgerald	2007	Verve	602517247659
Body and Soul	Coleman Hawkins	1939-56	RCA	90266851522
Subconscious-Lee	Lee Konitz	1949-50	OJC	25218618625
On the Trail	Frankie Laine	1990	Bear Family	790051154806
Complete Savoy and Dial Studio Sessions	Charlie Parker	2002	Savoy Jazz	795041707925
Moonlight in Vermont	Johnny Smith	2004	Blue Note Records	724359309125
Big Band Jazz	Jack Teagarden	-	Collectables	90431087121
Intuition	Lennie Tristano	1949-56	Blue Note Records	724385277122