Trevor Guy played his trombone in Cleveland for a half-century. A band leader from an early age, he was a drum major in Western Reserve University's marching band in the 1930s. After World War II, Guy founded a jazz combo. He became one of Cleveland's best-known Dixieland jazz musicians and a staple at Indians games at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Starting in the mid-1960s, his band often performed in clubs under the name Guys and Doll. He married Doll, a jazz singer named Betsy Griffiths.
In May 1975, Guy played on Little Italy's Mayfield Road at the Roamin' Carnival, a street-festival benefit for Cleveland Institute of Music scholarships. Keystone-like Krazy Kops and music students in clown costumes strolled by as the musicians performed from a flatbed truck. Outside Cremona's restaurant, people gathered to watch Basha, the belly dancer, and see the mounted police horses get fed carrots.
Guy performed into his 80s, at Jacobs Field with his combo and with Betsy at clubs near Naples, Fla., during winters. He died in 1998 at age 88. The Roamin' Carnival last roamed Mayfield Road in 1982, but Little Italy still hosts two huge parties each year, the Columbus Day parade in October and the Feast of the Assumption in mid-August.
