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Don Sleet

Donald Clayborn Sleet was an American jazz trumpeter. He was a member of Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All-Stars and Lenny McBrowne and the Four Souls. Widely considered a gifted musician, compared to the likes of Art Farmer and Kenny Dorham, Sleet had a short career as a result of his drug abuse, recording only one album as a leader.

Sleet was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on November 27, 1938. His father was a music teacher at school from whom he began to take lessons at age nine.[2] His family moved to San Diego, California, when he was ten years old. There he took piano lessons for four years before taking up the trumpet. Buddy Childers was his mentor for a year in Hollywood, before studying with Daniel Lewis in San Diego, where he was part of the San Diego State College Jazz Band. In addition, he studied with Shorty Rogers in Los Angeles, where he became a member of Terry Gibbs's big band. He also studied classical music, playing for the San Diego Symphony for three years.

Sleet fronted a small jazz combo in the mid 1950s, winning the Easter Week Jazz Festival at the Lighthouse Café in Hermosa Beach in 1956 and 1957. In 1959, he joined Lenny McBrowne and the Four Souls, with whom he recorded an album in early 1960. In the summer of 1960 he became a member of Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All-Stars. In October 1960, Sleet went to New York with The Four Souls to record their second and final album, Eastern Lights, supervised by Ornette Coleman.

Sleet's only session as a leader took place on March 16, 1961. Recorded in New York under the supervision of Orrin Keepnews, All Members also featured the musicians Jimmy Heath (tenor saxophone), Wynton Kelly (piano), Ron Carter (double bass) and Jimmy Cobb (drums). The album was released by the Jazzland label (a subsidiary of Riverside) and was described as "outstanding" by Down Beat. AllMusic's Alex Henderson described the album as a "fine hard bop date" where Sleet "shows himself to be a captivating soloist". The album was reissued in 2001 as part of Fantasy Records' Original Jazz Classics series.

After the release of his album, Sleet began to abuse recreational drugs, which forced him to quit playing. In the summer of 1964, Sleet played in Shelly Manne's My Fair Lady with the Un-original Cast, his last session. He would subsequently join the Synanon drug rehabilitation program, but for the rest of his career he would only sporadically play gigs.[8] He died on December 31, 1986, at his home in Hollywood due to a lymphoma that he had been battling for three years. Source: Wikipedia

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9
Book Review

Don Sleet

Read "Don Sleet" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian


Don Sleet Nicolas Rabel Ideo-Libris 2013 The electronic book, or the ebook, is one of the most significant innovations in publishing of the past three decades. It is versatile, saving cost and space. The French online publisher, Ideo-Libris has taken this concept one step further. The brainchild of children's author Armelle Modéré, bookshop owner and jazz enthusiast Nicolas Rabel and teacher Didier Dufresne, Ideo-Libris has released three works, one by each of the founders. These ...

242
Album Review

Don Sleet: All Members

Read "All Members" reviewed by Derek Taylor


Jazz, like any commercial art form, is a proving ground populated by far more practitioners than actually make the cut. The analogy of an iceberg is apropos. For every musician whose talent rises above the sea of public opinion’s surface there are literally thousands of others that toil away in obscurity beneath the waves. In the spring of 61’ Don Sleet seemed set to become one of the chosen few situated for stardom. Formidable brass chops sharpened in gigs as ...

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131

Interview

"My Brother, Don Sleet"

"My Brother, Don Sleet"

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Last week I posted about star-crossed trumpeter Don Sleet [pictured] and his sole leadership album All Members. Within an hour after my post went up, a reader sent along an email suggesting that I alert Don's brother, David Sleet. So I sent along a note to the email address the reader provided. David responded shortly, saying he enjoyed what he had read. Then we updated some of the information in the post to ensure its complete accuracy. Before we parted, ...

198

Interview

Don Sleet: All Members

Don Sleet: All Members

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

There are a number of highly talented jazz musicians from the late 1950s who can't really be called great because they recorded too few albums. In some cases these musicians never had an opportunity to record extensively. Or they came up too late and were trampled by the rock era in the mid-1960s. Or they succumbed to drug addiction and couldn't hold it together long enough to win the trust of record producers. Or they wound up in prison. One ...

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Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

All Members

Jazzland Recordings
1961

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