Uffe Baadh

Uffe Baadh (a.k.a. Frank Bode) (b. August 7, 1923 Aarhus, Denmark - d. November 22, 1980 Brisbane, California) was a Danish jazz musician who emigrated to the United States in 1947 to play drums in the big bands of Harry James, Tommy Dorsey, and Claude Thornhill, recording with Elvis Presley, Henry Mancini, and others. He was the youngest of four siblings: Grethe [Baadh] Freese, Hans Baadh, Marie Baadh. He married Shirley Goldberg on October 1, 1951, in Virginia, USA: two daughters, Valerie and Lise Baadh, born in California in 1952 and 1957.

Copenhagen Years

His father, William Baadh, was a local doctor in Aalborg and his mother was a housewife. When his parents divorced in 1937, he moved with his mother, Valborg Marie [Dinesen] Baadh, to Copenhagen. His formal music studies trained him in classical percussion as well as jazz, and his ability to read music notation, unusual for drummers at that time, served him well in joining different bands and orchestras. Becoming known for his flamboyant style and lively sound, he played in bands including Niels Foss with singer Freddy Albeck, and Kai Ewans Orchestra in Tivoli Gardens until 1943 when the Nazi Occupation closed Tivoli and set an 8pm curfew, thus closing all nightclubs, joining the jazz greats who created the so-called "Golden Age of Jazz" in Denmark. Here is a recording from 1943, with Niels Foss, Midsummer Swinghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0zj8Q0x5z4.