Major Holley

Major Holley (1924-1990) was a jazz musician, noted as an upright bass player (he also sang and scatted when playing solos with the bowed bass). He lent his voice and bass playing to an animated Sesame Street insert, directed by Ken Kimmelman, counting 1 to 6.

Holley scored Kimmelman's 1990 UN-commissioned short film Brushstrokes. During his long career, he backed the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington, and Quincy Jones and played duets with Oscar Peterson. He released several solo albums (one titled after his nickname, Mule!) and appeared on-camera as part of the jazz band in Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors.