Musician's Biographies
Getting to know ..... Martin "Van" Kelly
Van spent his formative years in Pittsburgh, PA,here his teachers gave him a clarinet and told him to blow it. He liked it so much
that upon graduating from high school, he headed for Chicago to expand his musical horizons. Van spent a couple of years playing
gigs wherever he could and then signed up with the Navy as a musician and became a member of the Treasure Island Navy Band in San
Francisco. It was there that he took private lessons and became further enamored with contemporary jazz.
After his four years of service during WWII, he returned to the Windy City and played with trumpeter Eddie Mallory which eventually
took him to New York City. He played in the Charlie Barnett Band at the Savoy Ballroom, played at the Apollo Theater with many other
bands, and then took a traveling stint with Eddie Rochester of Jack Benny fame. He returned to Chicago to be in the Billy Eckstine
Band as well as playing an occasional gig with Cab Calloway.
Big bands were on the wane after the War, so Van went to Roosevelt University in Chicago and received a double major in biology and
chemistry. He worked as the Medical Laboratory Director in the V.A. system and in private laboratories until he retired in 1985.
Retirement came easy to Van, for then he was able to pursue his deep down musical interests. He jobbed around Chicago for years.
The Van Kelly Trio, comprised of piano, drums, and sax, played for five years at the world renown Como Inn.
His son, Martin, a property owner on Hilton Head, asked his mom and dad to join him here, so Van and his wife, Lettie, moved here
in August of ‘01. Van says that he has golf clubs hanging around the house, and maybe after he gets more settled, he may endanger
other golfers on the course.
"Van" Kelly