At the time, he was a student at the Worsham College of Embalming in Chicago and worked at Louis Cohen’s funeral parlor on Clark Street.

According to Albrecht, he originally worked out the tune on a piano in a back room of the funeral parlor which at the time held the corpses of twelve men killed in Chicago’s Tong Wars.

[1] Over the years, Albrecht, who continued to work as an embalmer, played the tune in honky-tonks and small night clubs around Chicago.

After a frantic effort by the radio announcer and two lyricists to come up with a title, Jurgens casually suggested “Elmer’s Tune” and the name stuck.

McMickle (trumpet), Glenn Miller, Jim Priddy, Paul Tanner, Frank D'Annolfo (trombone), Hal McIntyre, Wilbur Schwartz (clarinet, alto saxophone), Tex Beneke, Al Klink (tenor saxophone), Ernie Caceres (baritone saxophone), Chummy MacGregor (piano), Bobby Hackett (guitar), Edward "Doc" Goldberg (string bass), and Maurice Purtill (drums).