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underrated trumpet players from the 60's, 70's...


Rooster_Ties

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Listening to this one right now:

B000001CQT.01._PE_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Very very nice! Wilder's also on the Hank Jones Savoy album, "Bluebird," providing one of the highlights, in my opinion, of that album.

How about Lew Soloff?

ubu

This is excellent. I highly recommend this, especially Cherokee. About a year ago or so there was a very nice brief articlea about him in Jazz Times, part of their Overdue Ovation series.

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It is very surprising that after all these responses I don't recall seeing anyone mention Jon Eardley? Jon is best known for his recordings with Gerry Mulligan. He also recorded with Zoot Sims, Phil Woods, and has a Prestige session under his own name.

However, the guy I believe to be most underrated is Bill Hardman. I recall going to a club in New York city some years ago and seeing a marvelous quintet with Bill hardman, Junior Cook, Walter Bishop,Jr., Paul Brown, and Leroy Williams. Hardman truly knocked me out that evening.

Hardman is on a number of recordings with Jackie Mclean, with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers,and recordings under his own name on Savoy and Muse.

Other trumpet players I consider especially underrated are:

Tommy Turrentine

Lonnie Hillyer

Ray Nance

Carmell Jones

Joe Gordon

Thad Jones

Peter F

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It is very surprising that after all these responses I don't recall seeing anyone mention Jon Eardley? Jon is best known for his recordings with Gerry Mulligan. He also recorded with Zoot Sims, Phil Woods, and has a Prestige session under his own name.

Welcome to the Board, Peter.

I agree. I was listening recently to the OJC reissue of Jon Eardley's first two Prestige albums. When I bought this, it was strictly to hear J.R. Monterose, one of my favorites. This time out, though, Jon Eardley's playing was right there in my ears, along with J.R.'s. He was a good one.

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How about Lew Soloff?

Soloff's a different bird - not really a "jazz musician" per se as much as an excellent, superior even, all-around musician who is able to bring a high level of competency and intellegence to a jazz setting,

If that sounds like it damningwith faint praise, it's not. It's just that Soloff has played a different game all these years, the game of the "professional musician". without any other adjectives. He's the worthy successor to cats like Jimmy Maxwell and Ernie Royal. Those kind of guys are equipped to play ANYTHING well.

It's a different game than being a "jazz musician", but noting the difference in no way presupposes that one is a superior to the other.

As for Wallace Roney...nah. Not even.

His wife, otoh, is a national treasure.

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I love Geri, though I'm happily married and I don't envy Wallace in any real way. ^_^

I'm going to mention four trumpeters that would fall in to the "fifties and sixties" era and are associated with Ellington, and who really are in my opinion "underrated" though they are held in esteem:

Ray Nance

Al Killian

Wille Cook

Harold "Shorty" Baker

These guys were each true originals, with very vivid tones and strong ideas.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Benny Harris

I think he wasn't mentioned on this thread. In the forties he was in the vanguard of bebop. Born in New York on April 1919, was active in the bands of Coleman Hawkins, Don Byas and Oscar Pettiford on the 52nd street. He composed the famous Ornithology with Bird and disappeared in the fifties. Dizzy and Dexter Gordon had quite a positive opinion on his advanced improvising abilities and playing. His greatest problem (like for many others) was drugs.

Only heard him erratically on few occasions as sideman for others, I'll be glad if someone could tell what happened to him later in the sixties and what recordings he made.

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Coltrane's first album on Prestige (not counting Dakar that now went out under his own name which is not what supposed to be originally) simply called 7105. There is a trumpeter whose name is Johnny Splawn on that album. He does a pretty good job and he is quite obscure (never saw his name in other occasions). Who is this guy? Is this a pseudonym for a real name?

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Absolutely not a pseudonym. Someone dig out the post that I made on this subject - I guess it was for that other board.

Mike

Poking around on the other board (AAJ), I haven't been able to find anything (yet, at least).

But for what it's worth, as I'm doing general searches on Google, the name appears to be spelled "Johnnie Splawn" just as often as "Johnny Splawn", at least in on-line citations.

Haven't found anything interesting yet, although there's an interview with McCoy Tyner on AAJ where Splawn is mentioned. Doesn't say much though...

AAJ: At the time you were coming up Philadelphia seemed to produce a remarkable number of extremely talented musicians? What was it like there musically during your formative years?

McCoy: Philadelphia at the time was so musical. There were so many great musicians there. I was very fortunate. You know, Bud moved around the corner from me, my mother’s shop. We used to follow him around, get him to play. Before he went to Europe. Richie was on the road with Max, Max Roach-Clifford Brown band. He got an apartment around the corner from me and they didn’t have a piano. So my mother did hair and the lady who was the superintendent’s wife said, “There’s this guy around here and he’s a great pianist but he doesn’t have a piano. Can he play on your son’s piano?” So I asked my mother what’s his name and she said “Bud Powell.” So, I lunged. I said, “Sure he can come around anytime he wants.” He scared me one time. I was in my mother’s shop practicing and Bud was outside listening. I said, “Oh my God! What’s he thinking.” I was very fortunate though. The older musicians were great.

AAJ: Red Garland also lived in Philadelphia around that time.

McCoy: Yeah, yeah. It was Red and Philly Joe and Steve Davis, my ex-brother-in-law. They played a lot together. Red and Philly and Steve and John (Coltrane). A lot of the cats. Johnny Splawn. All those guys. Red was wonderful. I loved that guy.

Edited by Rooster_Ties
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Oh, no, no. "That other board" is not AAJ. I've never posted there. I meant the Blue Note board.

Here are some tidbits from the research I did on John Splawn:

He was born on January 31, 1931 in Harrisburg, PA and he lived in Philadelphia for most of his life.

He studied with Mike Guerra at Ornstein School of Music on Spruce Street in Philadelphia (this may be where he met John Coltrane).

Clifford Brown admired him and the two played together in jam sessions in the area.

Drummer and singer Bill "Mr.C" Carney had a band with Splawn, John Coltrane, and Albert Heath before Coltrane joined Miles Davis.

Splawn performed at the Red Rooster club in Philadelphia with a Coltrane band that included McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Albert Heath. This was probably around May 1957.

He recorded (playing good trumpet) with Coltrane (May 31, 1957). This was his only recording session, although he was not happy with it because he felt he didn't play well. He had very high standards. Bassist Art Davis worked with Splawn on several occasions.

He played with Sonny Stitt's band in the late 1950's.

He was crippled, due to infantile paralysis - possibly related to a flood in Harrisburg - and used crutches. He called himself the "crippled genius." He was bitter about his lot in life (understandably so). A drinking problem also made him difficult to deal with at times.

He suffered a stroke a few years before his death that affected his facial muscles and forced him to stop playing.

He died December 20, 2000, in Philadelphia. Don't know the cause of death. His brother took the body back to Harrisburg.

Mike

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:tup Thanks a lot for the Splawn info :tup

Did you hear about the Candoli brothers ?

The older (Pete) and the younger (Conte) both played since the forties in Herman's band. Pete was a high note specialist and sometimes appeared in a superman's suite in concerts. The younger also got to work with Stan Kenton and Shelly Mann. They both developed their styles in the same time when Dizzy's star was rising and were influenced by him (and of course by some people from the older generation like Rex Stewart and Roy Eldridge). I suppose they made more contributions than I mentioned but still it would appropriate to mention them. Personally I only heard them as sidemen for others, once again, on rare occasions.

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Hey, anyone know the address of The Red Rooster club in Philly where this historic meeting of Trane and Tyner occurred?

I ask because. . . I lived at the corner of Baldwin and Summerset (I think I have that spelled right and that it is the right street corner) from 1957 to 1966 and on the other corner of the same side of the street was a bar, The Red Rooster. . . .!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I like Eddie Gale. The bits from his Sun Ra tenure that I've identified are great. His Blue Notes are very much up my alley; I like their fusion of American music forms and I think he was quite clever with his arrangement and leadership on these.

I've heard a few bits of his work since then and want to hear more.

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  • 4 months later...

Rather enjoying the trumpeter Danny Coleman on Rene McLean's "Watch Out" from 1975 -- which I'm only just hearing for the first time (on loan from Spontoonious).

Don't think I've ever heard anything else by or with Coleman before. Anything I should be on the lookout for??

The AMG doesn't list him as having played on much else --> one date by Gary Bartz in 1980, and another by Mtume also from 1980. Surely there's more he's on, I'm guessing. Anybody???

Edited by Rooster_Ties
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