Editing Red Nichols (section)

=== Early life and career ===
Nichols was born in [[Ogden, Utah]], United States.<ref name="LarkinJazz"/> He was of the [[Mormon]] faith.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.ldsfilm.com/bio/bioN.html | title=Biographies: Latter-day Saint and/Or Utah Film Personalities: N }}</ref> His father was a college music professor, and Nichols was something of a child prodigy, playing difficult set pieces for his father's brass band by the age of 12. Young Nichols heard the early recordings of the [[Original Dixieland Jass Band|Original Dixieland Jazz Band]] and later those of [[Bix Beiderbecke]], and these had a strong influence on him.<ref name="LarkinJazz"/> His style became polished, clean, and incisive.<ref name=Yanow>{{cite book|last1=Yanow|first1=Scott|title=The Trumpet Kings |date=2001|publisher=Backbeat Books |isbn=978-0-87930-640-3|pages=281–282}}</ref>

In the early 1920s, Nichols moved to the Midwest and joined a band called the Syncopating Seven. When that band broke up, he joined the Johnny Johnson Orchestra and went with it to New York City in 1923.<ref name="LarkinJazz"/> In New York, he met trombonist [[Miff Mole]], and the two were inseparable for the next decade. Before signing with Brunswick, Nichols and Mole recorded for [[Perfect Records|Pathé-Perfect]] under the name the Red Heads.