Danny Polo was an American jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 clarinetist.

Polo's father was also a clarinetist, and he learned to play from a young age, working in marching band

Marching band

Marching band is a physical activity in which a group of instrumental musicians generally perform outdoors and incorporate some type of marching with their musical performance. Instrumentation typically includes brass, woodwinds, and percussion instruments...

s from age eight. Claude Thornhill

Claude Thornhill

Claude Thornhill was an American pianist, arranger, composer, and bandleader...

 played with Polo as a duo in his youth. In the 1920s, Polo played with Elmer Schoebel

Elmer Schoebel

Elmer Schoebel was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger.Schoebel played along to silent films in Champaign, Illinois early in his career. After moving on to vaudeville late in the 1910s, he played with the 20th Century Jazz Band in Chicago in 1920...

 (1923), Merritt Brunies

Merritt Brunies

Merritt Brunies , was an American jazz trombonist and cornetist.Brunies was born into a well-known musical family in New Orleans, Louisiana; among its members were George Brunies and Albert Brunies...

, Arnold Johnson

Arnold Johnson

Arnold M. Johnson was an American industrialist, businessman and sportsman, who purchased the storied but financially unsound Philadelphia Athletics baseball club and moved it to Kansas City, Missouri, in the autumn of 1954...

, Ben Bernie

Ben Bernie

Ben Bernie , born Bernard Anzelevitz, was an American jazz violinist and radio personality, often introduced as The Old Maestro. He was noted for his showmanship and memorable bits of snappy dialogue....

, Jean Goldkette

Jean Goldkette

John Jean Goldkette was a jazz pianist and bandleader born in Patras, Greece. Goldkette spent his childhood in Greece and Russia, and emigrated to the United States in 1911....

 (1926), and Paul Ash

Paul Ash

Paul Ash was a German-born musician, bandleader, conductor, and lyricist....

. In 1927 he went with Dave Tough

Dave Tough

Dave Tough was an American jazz drummer associated with both Dixieland and swing jazz in the 1930s and 1940s...

 to Europe, where he played with several Continental bandleaders including Bert Firman

Bert Firman

Bert Firman was an English bandleader of the 1920s, 30s and 40s.He was born as Herbert Feuerman in London. His mother was of Polish stock and his father was a professional musician who had settled in Britain from Austria-Hungary in the late l880's. His three elder brothers were also musicians...

, Lud Gluskin

Lud Gluskin

Ludwig Elias Gluskin was a jazz bandleader.Gluskin drummed for bands in France in the 1920s, including at the Casino de Paris...

, George Carhart, Ben Berlin and Arthur Briggs

Arthur Briggs

Arthur Briggs was an African American Jazz trumpeter and orchestra leader who performed in Europe....

. From 1930-1935 Polo played with Ambrose

Ambrose (bandleader)

Benjamin Baruch Ambrose , known professionally as Ambrose or Bert Ambrose, was an English bandleader and violinist. Ambrose become the leader of a highly acclaimed English dance band, the Bert Ambrose & His Orchestra, in the 1930s.-Early life:Ambrose was born in the East End of London; his father...

, then returned to the U.S. in December of that year.

In 1938, Polo returned to Britain to play with Ambrose again, and worked with Ray Ventura

Ray Ventura

Raymond Ventura was a French jazz bandleader. He played a significant role in popularizing jazz in France in the 1930s.-Career:...

 in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 in 1939. Late in 1939 he moved back to the U.S. for good, and spent the early 1940s working with Joe Sullivan

Joe Sullivan

Michael Joseph "Joe" O'Sullivan was an American jazz pianist.Sullivan was the ninth child of Irish immigrant parents. He studied classical piano for 12 years and at age 17, he began to play popular music in a club where he was exposed to jazz...

, Jack Teagarden

Jack Teagarden

Weldon Leo "Jack" Teagarden , known as "Big T" and "The Swingin' Gate", was an influential jazz trombonist, bandleader, composer, and vocalist, regarded as the "Father of Jazz Trombone".-Early life:...

 (1942, including on Bing Crosby

Bing Crosby

Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....

's film Birth of the Blues), and Claude Thornhill again. He led his own Midwestern territory band

Territory band

Territory bands were dance bands that crisscrossed specific regions of the United States from the 1920s through the 1960s. Beginning in the 1920s, the bands typically had 8 to 12 musicians. These bands typically played one-nighters, 6 or 7 nights a week at venues like VFW halls, Elks Lodges,...

 for a time, then returned to play with Thornhill once more in 1947. While with Thornhill he became ill, and died rather suddenly in 1949. He recorded two sessions as a leader (which include Alix Combelle

Alix Combelle

Alix Combelle was a French swing jazz tenor saxophonist, clarinetist and bandleader, born in and performing in Paris for most of his life. He was well known on the Continental Jazz scene of Europe, active mostly in the 1930s and 1940s...

), both in Europe, in 1938-39.