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GREATEST JAZZ TRUMPET/CORNET PLAYERS
(As originally chosen by members, listeners and staff of WAER 88.3, New York; additions made by Chet A. Chwalik)
descriptions from the WAER document, as well as Wikipedia and "" by xxx publishing
(sorted by year of birth)
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KING OLIVER (1881-1938):
This New Orleans native started out on trombone, but had switched to cornet by the time he was 20.
He became so famous for his playing that the celebrated Kid Ory gave him the title of "King."
After World War I, he became one of many musicians to take jazz from New Orleans to Chicago, and eventually became the leader of the Creole Jazz Band in that city.
One of the musicians he sent for was a young cornetist named Louis Armstrong, who eventually married the band's pianist, Lil Hardin.
After the band broke up in 1924, he took over Dave Peyton's band and renamed it the Dixie Syncopators.
His career was gradually eroded by changing musical trends, poor business decisions, the Depression, and dental problems that made it hard for him to play.
His last recordings were made in 1931, when he was just 46. He eventually wound up as a janitor, and suffered from hypertension and other health problems that ended his life at only 52.
At his best, he was a brilliant player and leader, and his protégé, Louis Armstrong, would change jazz forever.
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LOUIS ARMSTRONG (1901-1971):
This New Orleans native came from the humblest of backgrounds, and got his first cornet with the help of a junk dealer for whom he did odd jobs as a child. When he fired a gun and was put into reform, it was a blessing in disguise, for he got formal musical training and learned the discipline needed for success as a musician. After his release, he did laboring jobs by day and played by night. He was musically adopted by King Oliver, who he replaced in Kid Ory's band. He also played in the riverboat band run by Fate Marable that helped bring jazz up the river from New Orleans to other parts of the country. King Oliver brought him up from Chicago in 1922, and he made his first records with Oliver's band and married the pianist, Lil Hardin. He followed Lil's advice and joined the Fletcher Henderson band, and then returned to Chicago, also switching from cornet to trumpet. He became noted for his incredible skill and stamina, for his improvisation, and for being one of the greatest showmen in entertainment history. In 1925, he made his first records as a leader, and his Hot Fives and Hot Sevens records of the 20s remain classics today. He started fronting his own groups, and also became famous for his unusual singing voice and his use of scat singing. In the early 30s, he spent several years touring in Europe. In 1935, he returned home, and his manager Joe Glaser set up a big band for him and also guided his career so that he became a star of pop music, radio, films and TV. After World War II, he stopped leading a big band, and led a series of "All-Stars" groups that became very popular and that concentrated on a traditional New Orleans style. In the 1960s, he had several big hits on the pop music charts, including "Hello, Dolly" and "What A Wonderful World." Eventually, he cut back on his appearances and recordings due to poor health, but even on the day he died in 1971, he was planning to rehearse to go back on the road. Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong set the standard for all later jazz trumpeters, and his singing also influenced virtually all popular singers who came after him. Miles Davis perhaps put it best when he said that nobody could play anything that Armstrong hadn't already played.
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Leon Bismark "Bix" Beiderbecke (1903-1931):
This Iowa native was a child prodigy on piano, but also taught himself how to play the cornet, and became a convert to jazz after hearing the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. His parents tried sending him to military school to keep him away from jazz, but he often sneaked away from school to go to nearby Chicago, the center of jazz in the 1920s. He eventually left school and went into music full-time in a group called the Wolverines. He joined the Jean Goldkette orchestra, but was let go because he could not read music. After he worked on that problem, he joined the Frankie Trumbauer orchestra and eventually returned to the Goldkette band. He became a very prominent member of Paul Whiteman's popular big band, where he worked with a young singer named Bing Crosby and had a specially-written part just for him in George Gershwin's "Concerto in F." However, he was an alcoholic, and had to leave the Whiteman band for a time to dry out because he had become so unreliable. His recovery did not last, and his drinking problem contributed to his death at age 28 in 1931. Luckily, he made many recordings in his short life, and they show the great beauty of his tone, along with abilities as a composer, as shown by the famous "In A Mist." Decades later in Syracuse, his long-lived former colleague Spiegle Willcox spoke of him, looked sadly toward the heavens and said to the audience, "Folks, don't ya think he should've hung around with me?" Still, as the title of a public TV jazz show proclaimed, "Bix lives." The fans of Leon "Bix" Beiderbecke would agree.
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Wild Bill Davison (1906-1989):
This Ohio native began his career with a number of Dixieland jazz groups in the 1920s. He was away from music for a while after he was in a car crash that killed fellow jazzman Frank Teschemacher, but eventually returned to New York in the 1940s. After service in World War II, he joined up with the great Eddie Condon, with whom he was frequently associated. Along with his work in Dixieland jazz, he also recorded some albums with strings, and toured a great deal in the U.S. and abroad until his death in 1989. His colorful life and extroverted musical style earned him the name of "Wild Bill" Davison.
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Henry James "Red" Allen (1908-1967):
Allen was born in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of the bandleader Henry Allen. He took early trumpet lessons from Peter Bocage and Manuel Manetta.
Allen's career began in Sidney Desvigne's Southern Syncopators. He was playing professionally by 1924 with the Excelsior Brass Band and the jazz dance bands of Sam Morgan, George Lewis and John Casimir. After playing on riverboats on the Mississippi River, he went to Chicago in 1927 to join King Oliver's band. Around this time he made recordings on the side in the band of Clarence Williams. After returning briefly to New Orleans, where he worked with the bands of Fate Marable and Fats Pichon, he was offered a recording contract with Victor Records and went to New York City, where he joined the Luis Russell band, which was later fronted by Louis Armstrong in the late 1930s.
In 1929 Allen joined Luis Russell's Orchestra, in which he was a featured soloist until 1932. He took part in recording sessions that year organized by Eddie Condon, some of which featured Fats Waller and Tommy Dorsey. He also made a series of recordings in late 1931 with Don Redman. In 1933 he joined Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra, in which he stayed until 1934. He played with Lucky Millinder's Mills Blue Rhythm Band from 1934 to 1937, when he returned to Russell for three more years, by which time Russell's orchestra was fronted by Louis Armstrong. Allen seldom received any solo space on recordings with Armstrong but was prominently featured in the band's live performances, even getting billing as a featured attraction.
As a bandleader, Allen recorded for Victor from 1929 through 1930. He made a series of recordings as co-leader with Coleman Hawkins in 1933 for ARC (Banner, Melotone, Oriole, Perfect, Romeo, etc.) and continued as an ARC recording artist through 1935, when he was moved to ARC's Vocalion label for a popular series of swing records from 1935 through late 1937. A number of these were popular at the time. He did a solitary session for Decca in 1940 and two sessions for OKeh in 1941. After World War II, he recorded for Brunswick in 1944, Victor in 1946, and Apollo in 1947.
Allen continued making many recordings under his own name and also with Fats Waller and Jelly Roll Morton and accompanied such vocalists as Victoria Spivey and Billie Holiday. After a short stint with Benny Goodman, Allen started leading his own band at the Famous Door in Manhattan. He then toured with the band around the United States into the late 1950s.
In December 1957, Allen made a memorable appearance along with Pee Wee Russell on the television program "Sound Of Jazz". In 1959 he made his first tour of Europe when he joined Kid Ory's band. He led the house band at New York's famous Metropole Cafe from 1954 until the club ceased its jazz policy in 1965.
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Buck Clayton (1911-1991):
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Roy Eldridge (1911-1989):
Like his contemporary Harry James, he got his start playing in circus bands. He became known as "Little Jazz" due to his short stature, but his talent proved to be plenty big, as he showed in various territory bands and in New York. After working with Teddy Hill, Billie Holiday, and Fletcher Henderson among others, his incredible virtuosity made the jazz world take notice, and also started appearing as a leader in the late 1930s. In the early 1940s, he was very popular as a member of Gene Krupa's big band, and became known as both trumpeter and novelty singer on the famous record "Let Me Off Uptown," in which he appears with a young and lively Anita O'Day. He later was a member of Artie Shaw's big band, and made short "soundies" promotional films that were forerunners of today's music videos. He had a big band of his own for a while, but turned to smaller groups when the big band market dried up and also joined Jazz at the Philharmonic. Although he did not take up bebop himself, one of his disciples, Dizzy Gillespie, was one of the founders of the new style. In the 1960s, he worked with Count Basie and with Ella Fitzgerald, but eventually decided to go back out on his own. He kept active in jazz until 1980, when a stroke left him unable to play. However, he continued to be interested in music until his death in 1989.
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(Charles) Cootie Williams (1911-1985):
He started out as a professional trumpeter during his teens in the South, and played with the bands of Chick Webb and Fletcher Henderson. In 1929, Duke Ellington hired him to replace Bubber Miley, and he stayed with Ellington for 11 years. "Concerto for Cootie" and "Echoes of Harlem" are among the pieces Ellington wrote to showcase his talents. He was especially noted for his effects with the plunger mute and as a soloist. He also recorded with Billie Holiday and others. After being one of the guest stars in Benny Goodman's 1938 Carnegie Hall concert, he left the Ellington band in 1940 to join Goodman for a year. He led his own big band for a while, but cut it back to a sextet in the late 1940s, and eventually went into R & B music. In 1962, he returned to the Duke Ellington Orchestra, and remained there even after Duke's death in 1974. His final recording was with singer Teresa Brewer in 1978, and he was semi-retired until his death in 1985.
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Harry "Sweets" Edison (1915-1999):
This Columbus, Ohio native started out at age 12, and in his teens played in local bands and in St. Louis. After moving to New York, he joined the Count Basie Orchestra and stayed until they disbanded in 1950. Saxophonist Lester Young gave him the nickname "Sweets" because of his sweet tone. He became a busy studio musician, and his trumpet was often heard in Nelson Riddle's famous 1950s arrangements for Frank Sinatra, who insisted that Sweets be given his own mike in recording sessions. He was also a member of Jazz at the Philharmonic, and made many recordings over the decades. His economical style was his signature, and he kept playing and recording despite cancer until shortly before his death in 1999.
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Harry James (1916-1983):
This trumpeter learned his instrument as a child from his father, who was a circus band musician, and was even a child contortionist before going into music full-time. He turned professional in his early teens, and got his first big break in the big band of drummer Ben Pollack. In 1936, he went to the big band of a new star of swing, Benny Goodman, and became nationally famous for his virtuosity and unabashedly emotional sound. He started his own band in 1939, and helped the career of a young singer named Frank Sinatra. When his band adopted strings, and also had such pop hits as "You Made Me Love You" and "I Had the Craziest Dream" with singer Helen Forrest, many critics were not happy with the new sound, but the public was. He also appeared in movie musicals in the 1940s, and was married for many years to actress Betty Grable. In the 1950s and afterward, he continued to play and record despite personal and financial problems, adopting a more Count Basie-like style for his band. He played his last concert only nine days before his death from cancer in 1983.
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Dizzy Gillespie (1917-1993):
This South Carolina native (born in Cheraw, SC) grew up poor in a huge family, but taught himself how to play both trombone and trumpet, and got more musical training after earning a scholarship to Laurinburg Institute. He dropped out of school to play professionally, worked in Philadelphia for a time, and then got to New York and went into Teddy Hill's band as a replacement for his idol, Roy Eldridge. He spent two years with Cab Calloway's big band, but Calloway was not comfortable with his innovative playing and called it "Chinese music." Calloway fired him because he thought that he threw a spitball at him, even though it was another trumpeter, Jonah Jones, who did it. It actually was a good thing, since he and Charlie Parker worked together to form a new jazz style, bebop. In 1942, he and Parker joined Earl Hines' big band, which turned out to be a cradle of the new style. When Hines' boy singer, Billy Eckstine, formed his own bebop big band, Parker, pianist and singer Sarah Vaughan, and the trumpeter went with him. In 1945, he and Charlie Parker made their first recordings together, and such numbers as "Salt Peanuts" and "Hot House" were such a change from the swing era that many jazz fans had no idea what to make of them. In 1946, he formed a band that became a real path-breaker, since he incorporated Afro-Cuban influences with bebop, and worked with such greats of Latin music as Machito and Chano Pozo. Also, the rhythm section of this band formed the basis for the Modern Jazz Quartet. However, after the novelty of bebop wore off, he had to break up his big band in 1950. However, he continued to work with Charlie Parker, became a mainstay of Jazz at the Philharmonic, and took a big band on tour for the U.S. State Department in 1956 that included such greats as Lee Morgan, Wynton Kelly and Melba Liston. He continued to lead small groups and to record, and even did a lighthearted run for President in 1964! In his later years, he formed the United Nation Orchestra with musicians from many lands, and was also a teacher and mentor to such younger trumpeters as Jon Faddis and Arturo Sandoval. He kept working until shortly before his death from cancer in early 1993. Dizzy Gillespie's musical legacy is still with us today, and his pathbreaking work in playing, arranging and composition totally changed the face of jazz over the past half-century.
Taken from "The Dizzy Gillespie Collection" (by Adam Perimutter):
Of all the luminaries in jazz, Dizzy Gillespie was among the most significant. Along with fellow 1940s modernists including drummer Kenny Clarke, pianist Thelonious Monk, and alto sacophonist Charlie Parker, Gillespie codified bebop - a language that today represents the common practice of jazz. With his signature look - beret, goatee, and horn-rimmed glasses - and an equally sharp elocution, Gillespie was, in fact, the archetypal bebopper. While colleagues preferred to be enigmatic, Gillespie enthusiastically explained his innovations to budding jazzers, thereby helping to cement the music's posterity.
Born into an impoverished South Carolina family in 1917, John Birks Gillespie received a rudimentary musical education from his father, who was an amateur bandleader. Starting on trombone, then switching to trumpet in his teens, Gillespie received a scholarship to North Carolina's Laurinburg Institute, where he studied harmony and theory while independently sharpening his trumpet and piano skills.
Gillespie withdrew from school in 1935, then joined Frankie Fairfax's band in Philadelphia. There, on account of his penchant for pranks, Gillespie earned the nickname "Dizzy". In 1937, Gillespie enlisted in Teddy Hill's band, where he filled a slot vacated by trumpeter Roy Eldridge, a personal benchmark. Gillespie was a featured soloist in Cab Calloway's orchestra from 1939-1941. During that tenure, Gillespie's extemporizations - especially on "Pickin' the Cabbage" - began to reveal an uncanny harmonic sense, foreshadowing bebop innovations. Nevertheless, Calloway condescended to Gillespie, labeling his experiments "Chinese music." An infamous spitball incident - in which Gillespie was mistakenly identified as the shooter - resulted in the trumpeter's dismissal from the group.
In the early 1940's, Gillespie freelanced with the bands of Benny Carter, Ella Fitgerald, Coleman Hawkins, and others, participating in a handful of seminal sessions. With Carter in 1942, Gillespie penned what was to become his most famous composition ("A Night in Tunisia"), and with Hawkins, the trumpeter wrote and recorded "Woodyn' You" (1944) - a composition commonly believed to have represented the first iteration of bebop.
During the early- to mid-1940's, Gillespie - full of ideas - participated in late night jam sessions at Minton's Playhouse in Harlem, where he, Kenny Clarke, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, and assorted others developed bebop. Gillespie and Parker began recording sides for the Musicraft, Guild, and Savoy labels, confounding swing fans with advanced numbers like "Groovin' High," "Salt Peanuts," and "Shaw 'Nuff."
After leading and touring with an unsuccessful big in 1945, Gillespie returned to New York and assembled a heavyweight orchestra and workshop, through which John Coltrane, future members of the Modern Jazz Quartet, and Chano Pozo would pass. In his new big band, Gillespie began experimenting with Latin music. The trumpeter's composition "Manteca," written with percussionist Pozo and arranger Gil Fuller, fused jazz with Afro-Cuban music, marking the creation of an appealing new language. Through a contract with RCA Records, Gillespie's groundbreaking big band enjoyed prosperity until 1950, when economic problems necessitated its disbanding.
In a serendipitous 1953 accident, Gillespie's trumpet was bent upward; he preferred the new sound, and played custom-deformed horns thereafter. Gillespie's bent horn and puffed-out cheeks would become one of jazz's most iconic images.
In 1956, the US State Department funded a new big band for Gillespie, and with hot young sidemen - including saxophonist Benny Golson, trumpeter Lee Morgan, and pianist Wynton Kelly - he toured overseas extensively. This arrangement was especially significant in that it marked the first time the US government gave recognition and pecuniary assistance to jazz. Gillespie's second big band split up in 1958, though, partly due to taxpayers' disapproval of funding a jazz group.
Gillespie fronted various small ensembles throughout the 1960's, leading such sidemen as reed player James Moody, pianists Kenny Barron and Junior Mance, and bassist Chuck Rainey. During that decade, Gillespie also enjoyed unprecendented popularity; California devotees even placed him as an independent candidate for US President.
In 1968, Gillespie toured Europe with his Reunion Big Band, and in the early 70's, he participated in the worldwide Giants of Jazz tour, featuring, among others, fellow legend Thelonious Monk. By that time, Gillespie's technical prowess had begun to diminish. Regardless, he remained a foremost jazz ambassador - touring the world, tutoring young players, and recording a trove of albums for Pablo.
During his last years, Gillespie amassed numerous accolades, including a National Medal of the Arts (1989), a Kennedy Center Honor (1990), and twenty honorary degrees from institutions such as Columbia University and the New England Conservatory. In 1988 Gillespie initiated the United Nations Orchestra - an all-star big band including trumpeter Arturo Sandoval and reed player Paquito D'Rivera. Gillespie remained active until shortly before his 1993 passing.
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Clark Terry (1920-2015):
He got his start in his native St. Louis in the 1940s, and also got experience in a Navy band during World War II. After the war, he graced the bands of Charlie Barnet, Duke Ellington, and Count Basie. In the 1950s, he started gaining recognition as a leader, and also gained a reputation for his use of the flugelhorn. He also became celebrated for his witty performances and for his famous "mumbles" style of singing, which was originally a satire on the poor diction of some blues singers. He also toured Europe with Quincy Jones, became a member of the Tonight Show Orchestra, and became a busy recording artist. He has led his own big band and a number of small groups, and has been a guest soloist with many jazz festivals and orchestras, including the Central New York Jazz Orchestra. Along with his decades of solid achievement as a performer, he is also noted for his hard work in jazz education and for his infectious sense of humor.
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Charlie Shavers (1920-1971):
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Al Hirt (1922-1999):
This New Orleans native studied classical trumpet at the world-famous Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, but also loved the music of Harry James, and played in the Army and in big bands before joining the Dixieland revival of the late 1940s. His Dixieland playing became his claim to fame, and his 1960s hits such as "Java" crossed over onto the pop charts, as did some of his efforts with a country leaning. His outgoing style made him a favorite with audiences for decades, and he kept playing despite a career-threatening lip injury and health problems that compelled him to use a wheelchair in his later years, not stopping until shortly before his death in 1999.
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(Theodore) Fats Navarro (1923-1950):
This Key West native played piano and tenor sax, but switched to trumpet and began his professional career in his teens. He was so good at an early age that he was chosen to replace Dizzy Gillespie in Billy Eckstine's legendary bebop big band. He and Dizzy were the foremost bebop trumpeters of the late 1940s. He played and recorded with Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Tadd Dameron and other greats. A heroin problem and tuberculosis combined to cut short his career, and his life, at the age of 26. Surviving recordings show that this young trumpeter had potential that could have made him one of the greatest of trumpeters had he lived longer, and he was a big influence on many artists who came along later.
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Kenny Dorham (1924-1972):
This Texan made quite a mark for himself in the 1940s in New York, where he played in the bebop big bands of Billy Eckstine and Dizzy Gillespie, and later became the trumpeter for the Charlie Parker Quintet. He was also a charter member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and was hired as a replacement for the late Clifford Brown in the Max Roach quintet. He also composed such tunes as "Blue Bossa," made many excellent records for Blue Note and other labels, gave breaks to such younger musicians as Joe Henderson, and wrote jazz reviews for Down Beat magazine. Sadly, he suffered from kidney disease in his later years, and died when he was only 48. However, he'll be remembered for years to come for his excellent hard-bop playing and his skills as a composer.
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MILES DAVIS (1926-1991):
This Illinois native came from a middle-class family that moved to East St. Louis, where he grew up and started studying trumpet at 12. He got his first musical jobs in high school, and was inspired when he saw Billy Eckstine's big band with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. He went to New York to attend the Juilliard School of Music, but found his real education working in jazz clubs with Charlie Parker and joining Benny Carter's and Billy Eckstine's band. In the late 1940s, he organized a nonet that performed arrangements by Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan and others that led to the recordings known as "The Birth of the Cool" and to the West Coast style of jazz. However, he developed a drug problem that made him unreliable, and ultimately went back home to quit heroin cold turkey. He recorded a number of classic albums for the Prestige label, and after his performance at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1955, he was signed to Columbia Records. For that label, he made a number of celebrated albums arranged by Gil Evans and with his small groups. He experimented with modal playing, and the result was the biggest-selling album in jazz history, "Kind of Blue," which still sells well after over 40 years. He collaborated with such greats as Cannonball Adderley, John Coltrane, and Wynton Kelly in a celebrated quintet. Late in the 1960s, he started working with electric instruments, and this would ultimately lead to his work with fusion and jazz-rock, which bothered many older jazz fans but attracted younger listeners. After a car accident and a hip replacement, he stopped recording for five years. In his last years, his approach had gained more fans, and he experimented with covers of pop songs by Cyndi Lauper and Michael Jackson, as well as with rap. However, he surprised many just weeks before his death by doing something he had never done; at the Montreux Jazz Festival, he went back to some of his older music by performing some of the arrangements that Gil Evans had written for him decades before. Not long after, he was dead at 65. However, the innovative and expressive music found in all the styles of Miles Davis will certainly live as long as people are around to hear it, and he continues to gain new fans and to influence jazz musicians.
Musical references:
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So What (1958, 9:23)
Bitches Brew (1970, 1:45:54)
Tutu (1986, 5:18)
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Red Rodney (1927-1994):
This native of the City of Brotherly Love began his music career at 15, and performed in many big bands before be became inspired by the new bebop sounds of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. He worked with Parker for two years, and the redheaded trumpeter got around laws in some Southern states that forbade mixed bands by pretending to be an albino! However, his career was derailed when he got into drugs and he wound up in jail several times. After he got off drugs, he worked in Las Vegas pit bands, and eventually returned to jazz in the 1970s. He worked with Ira Sullivan for a time, and also led his own quintet. When he was portrayed in "Bird," Clint Eastwood's film biography of Charlie Parker, he played his own solos for the soundtrack. In his last years he enjoyed a renewed career, which was cut short by his death from cancer in 1994.
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Ruby Braff (1927-2003):
This Boston native started his career in his hometown in the late 40s, when the Dixieland revival was a big trend in jazz. He got his first big break when he teamed up with clarinetist Pee Wee Russell, and also recorded as a leader of his own groups such as the New England Songhounds, doing both Dixieland and mainstream jazz. He worked in the 50s with such stars as Benny Goodman and Buck Clayton, and with George Wein's Newport All-Stars, but often had trouble getting work in the 60s because his style was considered old-fashioned by some. In the 1970s, he formed his own quartet, and became quite respected for his work in small groups. He remained active often with much younger players like guitarist Howard Alden and saxophonist Scott Hamilton. Fans of traditional jazz and swing know the name Ruby Braff very well.
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Conte Candoli (1927-2001):
This trumpeter and his brother Pete were both fine musicians, and he got his first job with Woody Herman's Thundering Herd on his brother's recommendation at age 16. After high school, he joined Herman's band full-time, and later went on to play with such bands as Stan Kenton, where he and vocalist Chris Connor made a celebrated recording of "All About Ronnie." He formed his own band and also became a busy session musician on the West Coast. He also became the trumpet section leader for the Tonight Show Band, led by fellow trumpeter Doc Severinsen. After Johnny Carson's retirement in 1992, he kept quite musically active, and late in his life recorded with the Pillars of West Coast Jazz and Bud Shank's "Silver Storm" group of over-50 musicians. He died of cancer in December of 2001 after a long and distinguished career.
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Doc Severinson (1927- ):
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Maynard Ferguson (1928-2006):
This native of Canada had his own big band in Montreal when he was a teenager, and came to the U.S. in 1949 hoping to join Stan Kenton's band, which was inactive at the time he got here. He played in several big bands until Kenton formed his path-breaking Innovations Orchestra, in which he attracted a lot of attention with his incredibly high top notes. He went into studio work in Los Angeles, and eventually formed his own big band, which he eventually had to disband in the late 1960s for financial reasons. He eventually formed a new band in England, and returned to the U.S. in 1974 with a very changed style. He put his flashy style to work in recordings of pop jazz that were not well-liked by critics and many longtime jazz fans, but that went over well with young people due to their rock and pop elements. He eventually came back to jazz with his band called "Big Bop Nouveau," with which he still tours and records at the age of nearly 75.
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Joe Gordon (1928-1963):
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Art Farmer (1928-1999):
This trumpeter was half of a pair of twins; his brother became a bassist. He studied piano, violin and tuba in addition to the trumpet. From the mid-1940s, he worked on the West Coast with Benny Carter, Gerald Wilson and others. He toured Europe with Lionel Hampton, and then settled in New York, where he worked with Horace Silver and Gerry Mulligan. He became co-leader with Benny Golson of the world-famous group called the Jazztet. When the music scene changed in the U.S. in the late 1960s, he moved to Vienna, where he settled into a job with the orchestra of Austrian Radio and married an Austrian woman. However, he did not abandon jazz, and worked in both small groups and big bands. In his later career, Farmer was again in demand in his homeland, and also frequently played an instrument of his own invention called the "flumpet," which combined the best characteristics of the fluegelhorn and the trumpet. He is much missed by jazz connoisseurs since his death in 1999, and his smooth and lyrical style is still not matched by anyone else.
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Jon Eardley (1928-1991):
(best known as the guy who replaced Chet Baker on the famed Gerry Mulligan pianoless quartet)
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Chet Baker (1929-1988):
This Oklahoma native was the son of a guitarist who had to abandon music to find other work during the Depression. He sang as a child, and continued to do so even after he had become famous on the trumpet, which he learned to play after the trombone proved too hard for him to play as a child. He got some musical training in high school, but he dropped out to join the Army, where he played in a band while stationed in Germany. He tried music study in college, but instead returned to the Army and played for them and at clubs in San Francisco, eventually getting a discharge so he could take up music full-time. He got his first big break thanks to Charlie Parker, with whom he played in 1952. He then joined Gerry Mulligan's quartet and had great popularity with that group, due both to his cool style inspired by Miles Davis and his James Dean-like looks. After Mulligan was jailed on a drug charge, the trumpeter formed his own group and won a number of jazz polls, and recorded both instrumental and vocal albums. He tried his hand at a Hollywood career, and then decided to tour Europe, where he returned several times and acted in Italian films. A drug problem that he developed in these years would plague him for the rest of his life, and he wound up in an Italian prison for over a year. His drug addiction got him into legal troubles that got him barred from a few European countries, and also caused havoc in his personal life. A severe beating also caused damage to his mouth and teeth that could have ended his career, but he learned how to play the trumpet all over again. He left music for a time, but came back and kept playing in the U.S. and abroad for the rest of his short life. He became something of a cult figure, and rock star Elvis Costello wrote the song "Almost Blue" with him in mind; also, photographer and film director Bruce Weber did a documentary about him called "Let's Get Lost." In May of 1988, a mysterious fall from a window in Amsterdam led to his death at the age of 58. Today, he is probably more popular in death than he was when alive, and is the subject of a recent book that may be made into a movie. However, even when all the hype is taken away, Chet Baker's cool, lyrical playing will be remembered through his many recordings.
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Clifford Brown (1930-1956):
He started on trumpet when he was 15, and soon became a mainstay of the Philadelphia jazz scene. He attracted the attention of fellow trumpeters Fats Navarro and Dizzy Gillespie, and Charlie Parker also admired his work. In 1950, a car accident took him out of musical action for a year, but he returned better than ever. After some early R & B recordings, he worked with Tadd Dameron, toured in Europe with the Lionel Hampton band, and recorded with Art Blakey's pre-Jazz Messengers quintet. In 1954, he and drummer Max Roach formed a quintet, and he also made some celebrated recordings with Sarah Vaughan and with Helen Merrill, who recorded a CD in his memory four decades later. One night in 1956, he played in a jam session in Philadelphia that was recorded. It turned out to be his last performance ever, for a few hours later, he was riding with pianist Richie Powell and his wife in bad weather on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and the three were killed in the resulting accident. A devoted family man, he left behind a wife and a son who grew up to be a well-known jazz radio personality and program director. A foundation bearing his name and run by his widow helps the careers of promising young jazz musicians through scholarships. "Brownie," Clifford Brown, will always be remembered for his virtuosity, his phrasing and for the sweetness of his sound and nature; his musical colleague Benny Golson depicted this in his moving song "I Remember Clifford."
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Blue Mitchell (1930-1979):
This native of Miami started playing trumpet in high school, and toured with R & B groups before he returned to the jazz scene of his hometown and started working with Cannonball Adderley. He became especially well-known for his work with Horace Silver between 1958 and 1964, and later formed his own quintet, which included a young Chick Corea on piano. When much of the jazz scene dried up in the 1970s, he worked with pop stars like Ray Charles and Lena Horne, along with such big bandleaders as Louis Bellson and Bill Holman, while still doing some jazz in a quintet with Harold Land. The world was deprived of his playing when he died at age 49 of cancer, but we still have many fine recordings of Richard Allen "Blue" Mitchell.
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Warren Fitzgerald (19??-19??):
(recorded with Bob Dorough)
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Nat Adderley (1931-2000):
This native of Tampa, Florida began playing trumpet at 15, and switched to the cornet at 19, which proved to be a wise career move for him. After playing in the Army and with Lionel Hampton's big band, he made his first recordings in 1955. He and his brother had a quintet that failed, but they reunited several years later and had much better luck, achieving great popular success with such hits as "Work Song" and "Jive Samba." The quintet stayed together until the cornetist's brother died in 1975, and then he led his own groups for the rest of his life until he died in 2000. Nat Adderley, cornetist and composer of a number of jazz classics.
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Donald Byrd (1932-2013):
This Detroit native studied at Wayne State University and the Manhattan School of Music, and made his first recordings while still a graduate student. After working with Max Roach, Art Blakey and Sonny Rollins, he had a band jointly led with saxophonist Pepper Adams for three years. For a time, he studied composition in Europe, and then taught at several major colleges and universities in the U.S. He even studied law and got a degree in 1976, and received a doctorate from Columbia Teachers College in 1982. Along with his academic work, he made many fine albums for the Blue Note label, and in the 1970s took more of a commercial pop turn, including a Top-40 hit record called "Walkin' In Rhythm." In more recent years, he has returned to a hard-bop style, recording with older artists like Bobby Hutcherson and with young lions of jazz such as Kenny Garrett and Mulgrew Miller.
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Bill Hardman (1933-1990):
Hardman grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and worked with local players including Bobby Few and Bob Cunningham; while in high school he appeared with Tadd Dameron, and after graduation he joined Tiny Bradshaw's band. Hardman's first recording was with Jackie McLean in 1956; he later played with Charles Mingus, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Horace Silver, and Lou Donaldson, and led a group with Junior Cook. Hardman also recorded as a leader: Saying Something on the Savoy label received critical acclaim in jazz circles,[citation needed] but was little known to the general public. He had three periods in as many decades with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers; Hardman's misfortune was not to be with the Messengers at the time of their popular Blue Note recordings. Blakey occasionally featured him playing several extended choruses unaccompanied.
A crackling hard bop player with blazing technique, crisp articulations, and a no-frills sound, Hardman later incorporated into his sound the fuller, more extroverted romantic passion of a Clifford Brown - a direction he would take increasingly throughout the late-1960s and 1970s. He figures by and large among the top ranks of hardbop titans of the time,[citation needed] although he never managed a commercial breakthrough like many of his colleagues such as Donald Byrd, Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan.
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Booker Little (1938-1961):
(yet to update description)
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Lee Morgan (1938-1972):
He was a child prodigy; he was a professional trumpeter at 15, and his work in Philadelphia helped him get to know Miles Davis and Clifford Brown; after the death of the latter in an accident in 1956, many in jazz considered him to be Brown's successor. At 18, he went to work for fellow trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and began recording for Blue Note. He was one of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers for three years, but left the band due to a drug problem and went back to Philadelphia for two years. When he returned to the music scene, he had a huge hit with "The Sidewinder," which was the start of a series of legendary recordings. He also returned to the Jazz Messengers. Later, he added modal elements to his hard-bop style, and also showed some funk influence. However, his personal life was complicated, and in 1972, he was murdered by his girlfriend when he was just 33. Despite his early demise, Lee Morgan will always be remembered by jazz fans for his adventurousness, soulfulness, and incredible technique.
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Freddie Hubbard (1938-2008):
His mother and sister were both pianists, and his brothers played saxophone and piano. While still a teenager in Indianapolis, he played alongside Wes and Monk Montgomery, and was inspired by Bud Powell and Dizzy Gillespie. His roommate in New York was Eric Dolphy, and he also worked with such stars as Philly Joe Jones and Sonny Rollins. In the early 1960s, he recorded for Blue Note, toured Europe with Quincy Jones, and also worked with Ornette Coleman, Oliver Nelson, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, John Coltrane and Herbie Hancock. He also made some fine albums for CTI, but had a rough career patch in the late 70s with some poorer ones, and some in the jazz world did not think well of his experiments with rock and fusion. However, he also won a Grammy and a Down Beat Readers' Poll in that same decade. He eventually returned to a straight ahead style, but his career was hampered in 1992by a serious lip injury and by some other health problems. However, he eventually recovered and started playing and recording again in 2001. He is also known as a composer of such classics as "Red Clay" and "Up Jumped Spring."
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Eddie Henderson (1940- ):
(yet to update description)
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Charles Tolliver (1942- ):
(yet to update description)
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Woody Shaw (1944-1989):
His father was a member of the Diamond Jubilee Singers gospel group, and he himself was named after bandleader and clarinetist Woody Herman.
He started on the bugle and switched to trumpet when he was 11. He went on his first tour with Rufus Jones while still in his teens, and then worked with Latin jazzman Willie Bobo.
After a stint with Eric Dolphy, he went with him to Europe, working with American expatriates like Johnny Griffin and Bud Powell.
After returning home, he worked with Horace Silver, Max Roach and Art Blakey, and also recorded a great deal with Jackie McLean, Dexter Gordon and others,
becoming a leader in his own right in the 1970s. Unfortunately, he suffered from drug problems, and also lost much of his eyesight to a rare eye disease.
In 1989, he lost an arm when he was hit by a subway train, and other complications following the accident led to his death at only 44, and one of his survivors was
a son named Woody Louis Armstrong ShaW. Although he was somewhat overshadowed by other great trumpeters of his day, Woody Shaw continues to be remembered for his musical gifts.
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Tom Harrell (1946- ):
(yet to update description)
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Arturo Sandoval (1949- ):
He started out as a classical trumpet student in his native Cuba, and can still play classical with the best of them, but most of his career has been spent in jazz, where he plays both trumpet and piano. As a young man in the Cuban army, he got thrown into the stockade for a few days because he was caught listening to Willis Conover's jazz program on the Voice of America, a station frowned upon by the Castro government. He was one of the founders of the Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna, and also of the world-famous band Irakere. In 1977, he met Dizzy Gillespie, who became a friend and who often played with him in concerts outside of North America. The Cuban government restricted his musical activities outside of the country, and he decided to leave. After he got his wife and son out of Cuba, he defected in 1990 at the American embassy in Rome while on tour with Dizzy Gillespie's United Nation Orchestra. (NOTE: This name is the correct one; it is often mistakenly called the "United Nations Orchestra," but Dizzy meant the band's name to depict the world as one nation.) He and his family moved to Florida, and he has been in high demand in his new country ever since, including a recent appearance in Syracuse. He has made a number of albums in this country, including one that is entirely on piano, and some Christmas recordings on GRP that show his jazz and classical trumpet skills.
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Jon Faddis (1953- ):
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Tim Hagans (1954- ):
(yet to update description)
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Wynton Marsalis (1961- ):
This New Orleans native comes from a musical family. His father is a pianist and jazz educator, and he has brothers who play saxophone, trombone, and drums. He was named after pianist Wynton Kelly, and got his first trumpet as a child from fellow Crescent City native Al Hirt. He studied both jazz and classical music while playing in local groups. At 18, he went to the Juilliard School in New York, and at 19 made his first recordings with Art Blakey and became one of the Jazz Messengers. In the early 1980s, he made headlines because he was playing acoustic jazz instead of fusion or funk like many of his contemporaries, and also recorded several classical albums. He decided to concentrate on a jazz career, and his success in that field led to many other young musicians joining him as "young lions" in the field of straightahead jazz. He formed his own smaller groups, and also became head of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. His views of musical history have made him a frequent figure of controversy, especially when he was prominently featured in the "Ken Burns' Jazz" series on public TV. However, his playing and compositional abilities are considerable, and he has been very active in promoting jazz education among young people. Also, his large-scale work "Blood on the Fields" was the first jazz work to receive a Pulitzer Prize for composition. Still only in his early 40s, Wynton Marsalis has made a lasting name for himself in jazz history.
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Roy Hargrove (1969-2018):
This native of Waco, Texas was discovered by Wynton Marsalis while still in high school. His talents quickly led him to Boston's famous Berklee College of Music, and also to recording his first album when he was just 20. He has since performed all over the world with many of the greats of jazz, and has recorded projects ranging from a Latin jazz CD to a Charlie Parker tribute, plus others with artists ranging from Dave Brubeck to Erykah Badu. This versatile young artist is frequently mentioned as a rival to his mentor Wynton Marsalis, and is still only in his early 30s. The sky may very well be the limit for Roy Hargrove,one of the many great jazz trumpeters.
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