Eugene Pingitore

Musician (violin, clarinet, banjo) and music teacher. b. USA 1895 - d. Melbourne, Australia 24 Jan. 1970. Brother of Mike Pingitore who played banjo & guitar with Paul Whiteman And His Orchestra Italian American Eugene (Gene) Pingitore studied violin in Italy, played violin & clarinet in several touring groups such as Caruso's Opera Company, Anna Pavlova's Russian Ballet, Titta Ruffo's Opera Company and the Adler Russian Symphony Ballet. He was in Brazil c.1912-1917 where he studied classical guitar (and may have recorded in Sai Paulo during 1915), around 1918 (back in the U.S.) he was caught by the jazz craze and switched to banjo as his major instrument. He came to Australia in 1925 with Ray Tellier's San Francisco Orchestra and stayed on after the band returned to the U.S. in 1926. Gene Pingitore was the pincipla banjo player with Tellier's Orchestra in Australia but also doubled on violin, Spanish guitar and saxophone (and can be heard playing at least some of those instruments on the band's Australian recordings. Continued playing with local bands in Australia until the 1950s. Also toured with various groups - for example, to South Africa the Charles Rainford Band in 1934 - and returned briefly to the U.S. in 1940 via Hong Kong.