Results for "Trumpet"

Kenny Dorham

Born: August 30, 1924

Overshadowed for most of his career by the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro, Miles Davis, Clifford Brown, and Lee Morgan, Kenny Dorham's abilities as a composer and unique voice as an advanced bop trumpet player are underrated to this day. McKinley Howard Dorham was born on August 30, 1924 on a ranch called Post Oak, near Fairfield, Texas. He attended Anderson High School in Austin, where he began teaching himself to play piano and trumpet, and spending much of his time on the school boxing team. He later enrolled at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, studying chemistry and minoring in physics

Bill Dixon

Born: October 5, 1925

Bill Dixon has been a driving force in the advancement of contemporary American Black Music for more than 45 years. His pioneering work as a musician and organizer in the early 1960’s helped lay the foundation for today’s creative improvised music scene in New York and beyond. In 1964, he founded the all-star artists collective, the Jazz Composers’ Guild, and produced and organized The October Revolution in Jazz, an unprecedented New York festival that helped put the so-called “new thing” on the cultural map.

A mentor to countless musicians, through both his teaching and his role as a producer for Savoy Records, Dixon turned his focus to education in the late 1960’s, serving for nearly 30 years on the faculty at the prestigious Bennington College, where he founded the historic Black Music Division in 1973.

John D'Earth

Born: March 30, 1950

John D'earth is the Director of Jazz Performance at the University of Virginia where he teaches improvisation, jazz trumpet, jazz composition, and directs the UVA Jazz Ensemble. Jazz trumpeter and composer John D'earth was born in Framingham, Massachusetts in 1950. He studied, as a teenager, with saxophonist Boots Mussulli, (Stan Kenton, Charlie Ventura, Teddy Wilson) with John Coffey, (principal trombonist in the Boston Symphony) and arranging with Thad Jones. He attended Harvard University and, later, moved to New York City where he studied with Carmine Caruso, Vince Penzarella and Richie Beirach. D'earth has performed and recorded internationally and appeared on over one hundred recordings spanning the analog and digital eras on vinyl, CDs, film, and video

Miles Davis

Born: May 26, 1926

Throughout a professional career lasting 50 years, Miles Davis played the trumpet in a lyrical, introspective, and melodic style, often employing a stemless harmon mute to make his sound more personal and intimate. But if his approach to his instrument was constant, his approach to jazz was dazzlingly protean. To examine his career is to examine the history of jazz from the mid-'40s to the early '90s, since he was in the thick of almost every important innovation and stylistic development in the music during that period, and he often led the way in those changes, both with his own performances and recordings and by choosing sidemen and collaborators who forged the new directions. It can even be argued that jazz stopped evolving when Davis wasn't there to push it forward.

Wallace Davenport

Born: June 30, 1925

World-renowned trumpeter, Wallace Davenport, was adept at a variety of styles in addition to the traditional jazz that he was most famous for in his native New Orleans. He played in brass bands as a young man; branched out into swing and bebop when jazz itself was changing, before returning to his roots in his later years. Davenport's resume reads like the history of jazz itself. The list of musicians he performed and/or recorded with include the Young Tuxedo Brass Band, Oscar “Papa” Celestin, Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, Ray Charles, Lloyd Price, the Zion Harmonizers, Earl “Fatha” Hines, Quincy Jones, Sammy Davis, Jr., Arthur Prysock, Phil Upchurch, and Frank Sinatra

Olu Dara

Born: January 12, 1941

Olu Dara is a multi-talented entertainer who has been performing since he was eight years old. Born (1941) in Natchez, Miss, Olu landed in New York in 1963 after a stint in the US Navy which took him all over the world. "Stranded in Brooklyn" (as Olu sings in his tune, Neighborhoods), Olu turned to music to survive. During the 1970s and '80s, he gained a reputation as a trumpet/cornet player who could handle all aspects of jazz. On the one hand he could perform with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers (1973- 74), but he could also handle the demands of the free- flowing avant-garde style which formed the basis of the New York Loft scene of that period

Ted Curson

Born: June 3, 1935

Theodore "Ted" Curson (born June 3, 1935, died November 4, 2012) was a jazz trumpeter. He was perhaps best-known for recording and performing with Charles Mingus. Curson got interested in playing trumpet through the fact that the local newspaper salesman had a silver trumpet that he was playing on the streets while selling newspapers. Curson's father could not afford a trumpet and besides, he wanted Ted to become an alto player like his idol, Louis Jordan. Finally, when Ted was 10 years old, his father found an old trumpet for him in the Navy Yard. He soon after formed a band, the Bebop Trio, with friends from the neighbourhood

Johnny Coles

Born: July 3, 1926

Johnny Coles never became a star name, but his associations with a half-dozen of the leading jazz figures of the post-war era are significant enough testament to his musical ability. Whether through circumstances or lack of inclination, Coles seemed content to work with others at the helm throughout his career, but he earned a significant reputation within those parameters. He was never a band-leader of any note, and recorded very few records under his own name. His debut album The Warm Sound, appeared in 1961, while his most significant record as a leader, Little Johnny C, was issued on Blue Note label in 1963. He taught himself to play trumpet from the age of 10, later adding the customary flugelhorn as well

Bill Coleman

Born: August 4, 1904

Bill Coleman was born in Kentucky and learned the trumpet from Theodore Carpenter in Cincinnati Ohio . He joined Cecil Scotts Bright Boys and traveled to New York City where he recorded with Luis Russell September 6 1929. He first traveled to Europe with the Lucky Millender band, playing in France for five months during 1933. He returned to Paris in 1935 and recorded there with Django Reinhardt. After the war in 1948 Coleman made the decision to spend the rest of his life in France, notably playing the first Jazz in Marciac festival and subsequently working with their President to support the festival until his passing in Toulouse.

Buck Clayton

Born: November 12, 1911

Buck Clayton first rose to national fame as the lead soloist with the first great Count Basie band that roared out of Kansas City in late fall, 1936. Ironically, while Clayton’s understated, bell-like sound is associated with the hard swinging Kansas City style, he actually spent little time in Kansas City. By the time he arrived at the famed Reno Club, a small dive on 12th Street, Clayton had already led a colorful career as a band leader, ranging from Los Angeles to Shanghai. Born in Parsons, Kansas, Clayton grew up in a musical family. Clayton’s father, a minister, taught him the basics of music