Post #573218 by tikicoma on Mon, Jan 24, 2011 10:01 PM

I talked to Sally Ann's brother last week and he said that Sun is Jerry's real name not a stage name.

I also was told that the master tapes of "the exotic jazz of Jerry Sun" still exist and that the recording engineer who made them still has every master he ever recorded. Trouble is he's been difficult to contact and he may be in a nursing home at this time.

Now the big news, I found and bought five 7 inch and one 5 inch reels of tape of Jerry Sun's trio's to quintets that were recorded live at fort lewis and tacoma between 1961 and 1963! The 61 tape was a quintet of army musicians who, Jerry said, had all been pro's before being "called up" during the Berlin wall crisis. The only name I made out over the music was the bass player, Terry Hilliard, the bass player who was on Cal Tjader's soul sauce and soul bird lps! (These recordings are being made available for Jeff's use after I make digital copies.)

From the 2/27/72 tacoma newspaper, "Jerry is a tall, dark mixture of filipino, chinese, russian and german." "His oriental father in Salinas, Calif wanted him to be a lawyer. Jerry earned a BA degree at Pepperdine University. He had music on the mind and balked at a law career." "His 18 year old daughter by a former marriage is entering college in Las Vegas....near their desert home." " Sally Ann sings and does the hula, tahitian dances and specialty numbers." "Todays Jerry Sun Show stresses top 40 pop , a lot of dancing and choreography, a lot of costumes and mod sounds."

4/16/80 (obit) at the end ," Sally Ann was an administrative assistant at MGM hotel in Las Vegas and a member of the junior Women's League." It also mentions her "former husband" Jerry Sun.

So I guess this will give you tikiphiles in Salinas, Las Vegas near Pepperdine and San Francisco (Terry Hilliards home) something to work with, I'm really interested in hearing what his daughter could tell us!

I would like to thank Lemon Hart 151 and 80 proof, Rhum Barbancourt, Countreau and Meyers Dark for their help with this posting :)