Ed Finkel (born 1929) a Watchung, New Jersey, resident, played in big bands as a young man, touring throughout the eastern U.S. and on an ocean voyage aboard the Queen Elizabeth II, with Helen O’Connell and the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra, as well as performing with the Vaughn Monroe and Sammy Kaye orchestras and others, before embarking on a career as a structural engineer.
Finkel was elected to The Lambs in 1987 as a Professional member. He worked as a structural engineer when not playing jazz.
For more than 25 years, Finkel was a member of The Jazz @Noon Band, the longest running jazz institution in New York City, launched by Les Lieber, in operation from about 1965 to 2011, for businessmen-musicians. Gathering every Friday this event featured weekly visits by renowned Jazz artists from all musical eras, including: Benny Goodman, Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Dick Hyman, Joe Wilder, Doc Cheatham, Harry Allen, Wycliffe Gordon, Anat Cohen, Ken Peplowski, Claudio Roditi, and Paquito D‘Rivera.
Ed has also performed with pianists Dave McKenna at the Copley Plaza in Boston and in Hyannis, and Dorothy Donegan at Fat Tuesday’s and the Fortune Garden Pavilion in New York City.