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Teddy Edwards / Howard McGhee: Together Again!!!!
by Richard J Salvucci
Howard McGhee was one of the cats present at the creation, when bop became a thing. His life embodied a classic redemption story, complete with death (metaphorically) by drugs, years in exile and finally, by dint of his own struggles and a timely gig with Woody Herman, resurrection. While he had been widely admired and respected in the late 1940s as a pioneering trumpeter, the unspoken judgment was that it was his misfortune to come to prominence when Dizzy Gillespie ...
Continue ReadingHoward McGhee: Maggie's Back In Town!!
by Richard J Salvucci
A picture (a video, in fact) is worth a thousand words. Consider one of Howard McGhee around 1966. It is at the Newport Jazz Festival, and an unlikely group of trumpeters is doing a bop tune at metronome-busting speed. The group includes Bobby Hackett and Ruby Braff (unlikely, no?). Hackett is delightedly laughing. Braff walks off into the wings sulking. Young Jimmy Owens has just upstaged Howard McGhee, to put it mildly. The guy selected to teach Owens a lesson ...
Continue ReadingHoward McGhee: Howard McGhee West Coast 1945-1947
by Richard J Salvucci
Bebop trumpet pioneer Howard McGhee has undergone a lengthy process of rediscovery and reassessment since his death in 1987. A one-time Downbeat Poll Winner (1947), it's probably not much of an exaggeration to say he had been largely forgotten, even by trumpet players. Yet Gunther Schuller (1989) and Scott DeVeaux (1997) soon published searching and sophisticated analyses of his contribution and playing. More recently, trumpet player Brian Lynch offers a terrific appreciation of McGhee in his “Unsung Heros of Jazz ...
Continue ReadingHoward McGhee, The Kenny Drew Trio, The Tal Farlow Quartet: Howard McGhee and Howard McGheeVolume 2
by C. Michael Bailey
Who is Howard McGhee?. Howard McGhee (1918 - 1987) today might be considered a footnote (albeit a large one) in jazz. But, during the rise of Bebop in the mid '40s to '50s he was considered one of the most technically proficient and inventive trumpeters performing. Critic Scott Yanow defined McGhee as the “missing [influential] link" between Roy Eldridge and Theodore “Fats" Navarro, the latter going onto influence Clifford Brown, who in turn influenced many other trumpet players in the ...
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