Lovers of music and food sometimes play a game in which players whose names have edible associations are combined in order to create a musical banquet of the mind. Adding Ted Muttonleg Donnelly to any such list might be the difference between a full meal and a snack . The man's involvement with classic big band music is fully of the former variety. For many nights he ate at the smorgasbord of Andy Kirk's creative

ensembles, and an equally long stretch of noshing at the Count Basie buffet followed. As a result of both bandleaders' efforts, the trombonist's discography stacks high, many classic pancakes.

Those within earshot of Donnelly when he began playing violin at the age of eight might not have predicted that such manna would be his simply from playing an instrument. He spent four years bowing and plucking before switching to the trombone, getting his first professional job in the George E. Lee ensemble. By 1934 the trombonist was working with Tommy Douglas. The Kirk period begins in 1936 and stretches some seven years, coincidentally about the same length of time he would stay with Basie starting in late 1943.

A theory of a seven year itch with this trombonist might thus emerge and is only slightly tarnished by the fact that he spent only six years with Erskine Hawkins beginning in 1951--pretty much his last collaboration before his death. Other Donnelly accomplishments include a U.S.O. tour with bandleader Al Sears during the second World War and a stint with tenor saxophonist Illinois Jacquet that lasted far, far less than seven years. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi