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The Philly Pops Big Band with Terell Stafford and Guests at the Kimmel Center

By Victor L. Schermer

The Philly Pops Big Band featuring Terell Stafford The Kimmel Center for Performing Arts Philadelphia, PA January 19, 2019 The Philly Pops wide-berthed orchestra includes some of the finest working jazz musicians in the city. The Pops' lead trumpet chair, Matt Gallagher, periodically assembles them as the “Philly Pops Big Band" for events such as the “Welcome America" July 4th celebration. This was the second of three performances of their first formal ...

Terell Stafford/Dick Oatts/Bruce Barth/Tim Warfield/David Wong/Byron Landham: Family Feeling

By Dan Bilawsky

It's not uncommon for a familial air to surround a band or a recording session. The bonds forged through the music, after all, play up trust and sympathies to a high degree. But some albums even go a step beyond that norm in their connective magnetism, and this is most certainly one of them. Family Feeling is more than a simple gathering of high-caliber peers; it's a date driven by the desire to impart aural wisdom and ...

Terell Stafford: Forgive And Forget

By Edward Blanco

Veteran trumpeter Terell Stafford delivers the second installment of saxophonist Herb Harris's dynamic “Jazz Masters Unlimited" series production, with the unveiling of Forgive and Forget, providing a forum for Stafford's talents and improvisational skills. Showcasing a repertoire penned and arranged by Harris, the trumpeter surrounds himself with a formidable quintet that makes his performance here much easier to appreciate. The A-list of players appearing with Stafford include tenor saxophonist extraordinaire Tim Warfield who served as the first masters series feature ...

Terell Stafford: Brotherlee Love: Celebrating Lee Morgan

By C. Andrew Hovan

Over the past several decades, trumpeter Terell Stafford has built a solid reputation based on the fact that he is a thoroughly accomplished musician who has been heard in the bands of Bobby Watson, Matt Wilson, The Clayton Brothers, and Dana Hall. Although he has digested the complete history of the jazz trumpet cannon, Stafford remains his own man with a style and approach that is squarely his own. This fact is important because in endeavoring to pay tribute to ...

Terell Stafford Quintet: Tempe, AZ, May 10, 2013

By Patricia Myers

Terell Stafford QuintetTempe Center for the ArtsTempe, AZMay 10, 2013Trumpeter Terell Stafford and his East Coast quintet delivered dynamic ensemble work and memorable solos in a concert on the theme, This Side of Strayhorn. A third of the evening's repertoire came from the leader's 2011 MAXJAZZ album of the same name, celebrating Duke Ellington's renowned colleague.The three lesser-known Billy Strayhorn charts performed were from his small ensemble writing, rather than the more familiar ...

February 2012: Terell Stafford Quintet: The Music of Lee Morgan

By RJ Johnson

Terell Stafford QuintetPerelman Theater, The Kimmel CenterFebruary 25, 2012 Philadelphia native, trumpeter Terell Stafford led his quintet through two sets of original arrangements dedicated to legendary trumpeter Lee Morgan in the Perelman Theater, located inside Philadelphia's Kimmel Center. The performance was part of the Kimmel Center's 2011-2012 “Jazz Up Close" Series, which has been designed to expose new audiences to accomplished jazz artists native to Philadelphia.The series has also included tenor ...

Terell Stafford Quintet: Philadelphia, PA, February 25, 2012

By Victor L. Schermer

Terell Stafford QuintetJazz Up Close Celebrates Lee MorganPerelman TheaterThe Kimmel Center for the Performing ArtsPhiladelphia, PAFebruary 25, 2012This concert was one in a highly successful series which has been curated, coordinated, and choreographed by Danilo Perez for nearly a decade, so far in the 2011-12 season honoring Philadelphia legends such as Jimmy Heath and Benny Golson, and coming up on April 14th, McCoy Tyner. Trumpeter Lee Morgan (1938-1972) came of age ...

Terell Stafford: Trial and Inspiration

By Andrew J. Sammut

Terell Stafford is as likely to credit his influences as he is to impress his listeners. Coming to jazz comparatively later than many players, and even with his busy schedule as a sideman, leader and educator, he remains devoted to exploring the music's roots, while expressing a relentless desire to learn more. Stafford first started playing trumpet at age thirteen, initially studying the classical repertoire and pursuing a music education degree at the University of Maryland. After ...

Terell Stafford: This Side of Strayhorn

By Kevin Davis

The preservation of traditional values in jazz has long been at the core of the art form's most bittersweet dichotomy, which is essentially a spin on the age-old idea that even moderate-level progressions in any given field require ideological breakdowns that generally make everyone mad. Miles Davis, for example, decried this preservation outright, and the jazz community gave him the finger, banishing him to Bill Graham's Fillmore East where they figured his wonky voodoo rock would be of greater use ...

Terell Stafford: This Side of Strayhorn

By Dan McClenaghan

Some music just stands out from the crowd, and certainly Billy Strayhorn's tunes do exactly that. What would the great composer/bandleader Duke Ellington have been without his collaborator? He still certainly would have been considered one of the America's greatest artists, but it's hard to imagine an Ellington “greatest hits" offering--if one could be achieved, considering the Duke's immense output--without Strayhorn's gorgeous and familiar “Lush Life," “Take the 'A' Train," “Lotus Blossom," or “Chelsea Bridge." This Side of ...

Terell Stafford Shares Brotherly Love, Organ Fever

By Laurel Gross

Clayton BrothersBrother to Brother ArtistShare 2008 Tim WarfieldOne for Shirley Criss Cross 2008 Playing favorites can be a subjective enterprise but it would take a real grouch to insist that Terell Stafford isn't one of the most talented of the current crop of trumpeters. Stafford's got 'it'--excellent tone, good ideas, precision, focus, drive and ...

Terell Stafford: Taking Chances: Live at the Dakota

By Jim Santella

With his rich trumpet tone and delicate manner, Terell Stafford brought his quintet into Minneapolis' Dakota Bar and Grill in June, 2005 for this well-received concert performance. They got the sound just right, and the musicians provided their audience with an unforgettable experience.

Stafford plays it cool. He's got no axe to grind, no pretense of machismo to blast forth, and no reason to imitate the newest tricks on the block. He's a conservative. The trumpeter has the ...