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(I had his death year wrong before...)

Would anyone know anything about this fine tuba player who was arguably the most heard tuba player of the 1920s?

He played with the Wolverines (just after best friend Bix Beiderbecke left to greener pastures). A few years later, just prior to Bix's death, they played together with the Paul Whiteman orchestra.



I'm very curious as what you would all think of an in depth study of his life...

Min also played bass sax but didn't ever get around to learning bass fiddle and kind of fell through the cracks when most jobs went to bass . I may have read this on here so you could do a search and prorably find it . I think the thread was about "Country" Joe Washburn who did learn bass and also was a singer and arranger . You Tube , Ted Weems band , Piccolo Pete . Regards , Ed

I jist did a search and it seems you already know Way more about Min than I do . Every post was from you .Best of luck in your continuing research . Ed

Min just liked anything with low sounds. He played string bass, bass saxophone (not the puny bari), and anything else that sounded low. He started out on cornet but, liking low sounds, he switched all those attributes to the tuba. My sources tell me he used a couple of sousaphones... a King and a Buescher. He owned both of these himself. In the years after playing with Paul Whiteman (and Bix's death), he moved to Hollywood where he worked in a motion picture studio orchestra as a string bass player.

I would check out the book "Remembering Bix" by Ralph Berton, (1974, Harper and Row). I don't know if it's still in print but it's a classic memoir of the jazz age and there are many references to Min Leibrook. I know that he went on to play tuba with Paul Whiteman after playing with Bix Beiderbecke in the Wolverines. Somewhere there is a picture of him in the Whiteman band holding that huge Conn sousa with all of the engraving on it-it was some kind of presentation piece that's still around somewhere. He played short solos, ("breaks") on the 1924 Wolverines recordings and that was unusual for the time.

Here is the text of Leibrook's obituary-he died out in California:

Wilford R. Leibrook
Funeral services for Wilford F. Leibrook, 40, of 8246 Kirkwood Drive, formerly a member of Paul Whiteman's orchestra and for the past three years of the Earl Carroll Theater orchestra, will be conducted at graveside in Forest Lawn Memorial Park at 2:30 p.m. Monday. He leaves his widow Jacqueline.