Leo Arnaud started his musical education at the Conservatoire National de Musique de Lyon at the age of eleven. He studied percussion, harmony and counterpoint, cello and trombone (Arnaud’s father was a trombonist) and graduated with a general Certificate of Studies in 1916. As a post-graduate he gained many first prizes in these subjects over the years 1917 to 1924. Arnaud moved to Paris in 1917 and at the age of fourteen performed on cello Ave Maria by Charles Gounod (1818-1893) accompanied on organ by Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921) at the Vichy Cathedral. For a time (c. 1922) he studied conducting with Felix Weingartner (1863–1942) at the Berlin State Opera. Aged eighteen Arnaud started to pursue a career in jazz in Paris, initially as a drummer, later playing trombone as Leo Vauchant with popular jazz groups: Chicago Hot Spots (1924), and Paul Gason’s band (1925). He studied solfège (vocal exercises to teach pitch and sight-reading) with Jean Vauchant and lived with the Vauchant family in Paris after his