Curtis Fuller: Motor City Messenger

Russ Musto

since 2002

Russ Musto has been a member of the jazz community for more than thirty years, working as a writer, radio personality, record producer, promoter and proprietor of the Village Jazz Shop.

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Published: December 1, 2008

“ I listened to everything walking with a trombone, from Tommy Dorsey on ... I listened to the instrument. Everybody that played it ”

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The most recorded jazz trombonist of his lifetime, Curtis Fuller's illustrious career spans six decades and includes tenures with many of the greatest names in this music. Born Dec. 15th, 1934 in Detroit, Fuller was orphaned at an early age, but found family in the close-knit jazz community of the musically fertile Motor City. He first picked up the trombone in the school band at Cass Tech High School, where his fellow students included Donald Byrd Donald Byrd
1932 - 2013
trumpet and Paul Chambers Paul Chambers
1935 - 1969
bass, acoustic and the list of graduates reads like a Who's Who of jazz.

Fuller downplays his early musical abilities evidenced at Cass: "I was trying to play. I wasn't in the band, the A band, I was in like the D band." Nevertheless it was there that he developed his love for his instrument. "There was a young guy that came up with Donald Byrd, his name was Claude Black," he recalls. "He came to the high school and played with some gentlemen, Roland Hanna... Gene Taylor was the bassist. That's the very first time, first guy I fell in love with. He didn't play anything like JJ. He played like himself."

But it was JJ Johnson who eventually became Fuller's greatest influence, providing the blueprint for him to develop his playing. "I heard JJ on the recording with Charlie Parker Charlie Parker
1920 - 1955
sax, alto , 'Quasimodo' [hums the melody] and then I saw him later... I was in the orphanage—I saw him coming out there playing with Illinois Jacquet," he says. Fuller became an earlier progenitor of the Johnson-based bebop trombone style, but quickly developed his own unique voice. "I was told coming up by Miles and everybody, 'Get off of JJ. Don't play his shit. Play your own shit.'" Fuller's influences go well beyond Johnson. In addition to hearing Frank Rosolino Frank Rosolino
1926 - 1978
trombone and Kiane Zawadi, the two most prominent trombonists on the Detroit scene during his youth, he checked out the instrument's history. "I listened to everything walking with a trombone, from Tommy Dorsey Tommy Dorsey
1905 - 1956
trombone on," he says proudly. "I know guys you never heard of—Fred Mergy, Tommy Turk, Trummy Young—I listened to the instrument. Everybody that played it, I listened to."

Miles was just one of the many jazz greats that Fuller worked with when he began his professional career in Detroit, which he admits did not really start until he returned home after a stint in the Army (where he played with Cannonball Adderley's dance band) and entered Wayne State University (where his roommate was saxophonist Joe Henderson Joe Henderson
1937 - 2001
sax, tenor ). "Before that I mean, it wasn't what you would call working... I mean it was sittin' in. Most of that came as a little guy trying to sit in with Thad [Jones] and Billy Mitchell...just trying to sit in, sittin' in with people. I wasn't really working with anybody... I worked with lesser-known guys. Most of the guys would be more identified with Motown." When the trombonist did begin working, things took off rapidly. "The first was Kenny Burrell Kenny Burrell
b.1931
guitar , he gave me my first job...at Klein's Showbox in 1955...he had Pepper Adams Pepper Adams
1930 - 1986
sax, baritone in the band, Tommy Flanagan," Fuller remembers.

"After Kenny left... to go with Oscar Peterson Oscar Peterson
1925 - 2007
piano ... Pepper Adams and I started the Bone and baritone band," Fuller says. The band gained some notoriety playing on Soupy Sales' television show. "He was very good to jazz—that brought the Bone and baritone to prominence. We used to play all Thad Jones shit. Pepper Adams...he literally made me play all that old hard shit."

Yusef Lateef Yusef Lateef
b.1920
reeds was Fuller's next employer. While working with Lateef the trombonist left Detroit, headed to Boston to make his first recording, Jazz In Transition, with Adams and John Coltrane and then came to New York to record with Lateef for Prestige. While there he made it down to Birdland to sit in with Miles. After the gig Davis went across the street to the Alvin Hotel where Fuller was staying with Lateef and told him, "Look, I want you to join the band." Fuller said, "Well I have to ask Yusef because I'm working with him," to which Miles replied, "Well there he is, ask him." Lateef agreed, asking for two weeks notice, but unfortunately health problems forced Davis to disband a couple of weeks later.