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Bob Harrington

American musician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionNov 26, 2023
Entity authorityQ4932694 ↗
Source-derived summary

Robert Maxon Harrington (January 30, 1912, in Marshfield, Wisconsin – August 20, 1983, in Kona, Hawaii) was an American jazz vibraphonist.

Harrington was also adept at drums and piano in addition to vibraphone. He played with Charlie Barnet in the early 1950s on piano, and worked with both Red Nichols and Bud Freeman that decade as a drummer. On vibraphone, he played with Georgie Auld, Buddy DeFranco, Vido Musso, Ben Webster, Ann Richards, and Harry Babasin's Jazzpickers. He released one solo album, Vibraphone Fantasy in Jazz, on Imperial Records in 1957, which is now a collector's item.

Discography

As leader

For Moderns Only with the Jazzpickers (Mercury/EmArcy, 1957)

Vibraphone Fantasy in Jazz with Bob Harrington (Imperial, 1957)

Jazz a La Carte (Crown, 1963)

Leachery without Treachery with the Dirty Old Men (Nocturne, 1969)

As sideman

Buddy Childers, Sam Songs (Liberty, 1956)

Bob Keene, Bob Keene and His Orchestra (Fresh Sound 1988)

Jackie Kelso & Bill Hood, Dirty Old Men (Jazz Chronicles, 1970)

Ann Richards, Two Much!

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Bob Harrington” as american musician. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Harrington, American and musician.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1912, 1983, 1957, 1963—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1912-01-30. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Harrington, American and musician providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Bob Harrington”, the useful work is to connect “american musician” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 26, 2023. The linked authority identifier is Q4932694. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1912, 1983, 1957 and 1963.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Bob Harrington”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Bob Harrington primary sources, Bob Harrington archive and Harrington research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Bob Harrington”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Bob Harrington” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.