News & Updates — trumpet

On his birthday today we miss our NYC jazz scene trumpeter/composer hero Roy Campbell Jr. I have witnessed his excellence on many, many occasions and his bright tone and world music-influenced free-jazz are greatly missed. He was most definitely one of the greats of progressive jazz trumpet, in lineage with Lee Morgan, Clifford Brown, Booker Little and Don Cherry. A native of the Big Apple, he started playing trumpet at 15 and studied with Morgan and Kenny Dorham. As a teen he played in big bands and as he turned 20 he aligned himself with the avant-garde with his group...

Happy birthday to the bop trumpeter Fats Navarro, good friend of Charles Mingus and a huge influence on Clifford Brown before Navarro's short life ended at just 26. Our Afro-Cuban-Chinese hero was from Key West and played in Florida and Cincinnati to begin his pro career. To Kansas City in '44, he started playing in the swing band of Andy Kirk before settling in NYC in '46. He joined Billy Eckstine's great band as well as participating in the bebop revolution with Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Tadd Dameron, Kenny Clarke and others. As a bi-lingual Latino, he also spent time jamming...

Sending out a birthday to salute to Clifford Thornton, a cult free-jazz composer (and former Black Panther Party Minister of Art) who released a spate of classics from '67-'75 on various independent labels. In some ways he could be likened to the Eric Dolphy of his generation, a multi-instrumentalist artist who greatly impacted contemporary musicians around him while remaining out of the general public's eye. From Philly, he was a cousin to jazz drummer J.C. Moses. At seven he started learning piano and as a teenager studied with Donald Byrd and played with jazz tuba player Ray Draper. After moving...

Happy birthday to Buddy Bolden, one of the creators of the amazing artform known as "jazz". A New Orleans-born cornetist, King Bolden's band was very popular in the city at the turn of the twentieth century. They say he used to improvise against the established rhythm in the marching bands, effectively inventing the jazz solo.  He synthesized ragtime, blues, gospel and marching bands, relegating the strings to the rhythm and bringing the horns to the front. A major influence on King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong, it is fair to call him one of the most important figures...

One of the greats, bop trumpeter & arranger (and singer!) Kenny Dorham may be best known for his composition "Blue Bossa" but check your collection and you will find his name on dozens and dozens of classic sides. His playing is exquisite and clear-toned with perfectly placed notes, and he had great taste in sidemen! Born McKinley Dorham, he grew up in Austin TX. He joined the Dizzy Gillespie band in '45, as well as a stint in that Billy Eckstine group that yielded many future bop stars. He also played in the '40s with Mercer Ellington, Kenny Clarke and...