- Played valve trombone from the age of seven, slide trombone from the age of eleven. Switched to trumpet during the 1920's, while performing with Paul Tremaine's Orchestra in New York.
- Ten of the fourteen musicians in Dunham's band doubled up on trumpet.
- Led several short-lived orchestras (his first was 'Sonny Lee & His New York Yankees' in 1931; he fronted another group, 1936-37), before commercial success with a big band organised in 1940, which included among its personnel the trumpeter Pete Candoli, tenor saxophonist Corky Corcoran and Danish-born trombonist Kai Winding. Dunham's theme song was "Memories of You", a track he had made his own as a soloist with the Casa Loma Orchestra in 1937.
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