Bonano was born in the Milneburg neighborhood of New Orleans near Lake Pontchartrain. He grew up at Quarella’s, his brother-in-law’s dance pavilion. He was given a trumpet by Buddie Petit in 1917 and followed Petit, Joe Oliver, and Sam Morgan in brass band parades. In the early '20s, New Orleans native Sharkey Bonano played locally with the bands of Chink Martin and Freddie Newman, among others.
Sharkey learned how to read music after failing an audition in New York to replace Bix Beiderbecke in the Wolverines in 1924, but he did land a spot with pianist Jimmy Durante. The next year, he returned home to lead his own band. In 1927, he joined the famous Jean Goldkette Orchestra, which then featured Bix Beiderbecke and Frankie Trumbauer. 
In 1928, he co-led the Melody Masters with Leon Prima on the steamer Greater New Orleans and later led a band at the Chez Paree near West End.After playing in California with Original Dixieland Jazz Band clarinetist Larry Shields, Bonano once again returned to New Orleans, where he stayed from 1930-1936. In 1936, Bonano worked with Ben Pollack before forming his own New York-based group, the Sharks of Rhythm, with which he recorded much of his finest work. Around that time, he also played sporadically with the ODJB. He spent several years in New York, where he recorded for the Brunswick label and began an association with Nick Rongetti, the owner of Nick’s in Greenwich Village, inaugurating a jazz policy there.
After World War II fueled by the New Orleans revival, he toured Europe, Asia, and South America, played residencies in Chicago and New York, and then was a regular on Bourbon Street in the New Orleans French Quarter, where his outgoing musical personality gained him a large following.
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On one New York stint, Arthur Rubinstein heard him play and then asked him to demonstrate his tone to the trumpet section of the new York Philharmonic.
On one New York stint, Arthur Rubinstein heard him play and then asked him to demonstrate his tone to the trumpet section of the new York Philharmonic.
In 1949, he led his own groups and appeared at the Roosevelt Hotel's Blue Room and the Famous Door Bar and was active until the 1960s, when ill health forced him to retire shortly before his death on May 27, 1972 in New Orleans, Louisiana.
(Edited from various sources mainly Wikipedia & AllMusic)
12/25/58 WNTA-TV Art Ford New Orleans Jazz Party, (filmed at WDSU-TV studio, New Orleans 8/11/58) Sharkey Bonano (t) Percy Humphrey (t) Clement Tervalon (tb) Harry Shields (cl) Alphonse Picou (cl) Eddie Miller (ts) Armand Hug (p,v) George Guesnon (b) Alcide Pavageau (b) Sherwood Mangiapane (b) Louis Barbarin (d)
12/25/58 WNTA-TV Art Ford New Orleans Jazz Party, (filmed at WDSU-TV studio, New Orleans 8/11/58) Sharkey Bonano (t) Percy Humphrey (t) Clement Tervalon (tb) Harry Shields (cl) Alphonse Picou (cl) Eddie Miller (ts) Armand Hug (p,v) George Guesnon (b) Alcide Pavageau (b) Sherwood Mangiapane (b) Louis Barbarin (d)