The 1950's: a Brilliant Decade for Trumpeters

Don Fagerquist

Blue Mitchell

I started off with the idea of looking at a few of the less well-known trumpet players who came of age in the 1950s. As I looked more closely at who reached maturity and was at or near the top of their game in that quiet Eisenhauer decade, I couldn't believe the wealth of players. There were the famous: Kenny Dorham, Clark Terry, Blue Mitchell, Joe Newman, Clifford Brown, Lee Morgan, Art Farmer, Maynard Ferguson, Chet Baker, Donald Byrd, Doc Severinson(you could arguably put Miles here too). 

Idrees Sulieman

Jack Sheldon

Then, there were the somewhat less well-known: Nat Adderly, Idrees Sulieman, Bill Hardman, Thad Jones, Carmell Jones, Booker Little, Dizzy Reece, the Condoli Brothers and Johnny Coles. Then, there are those whose names are pretty much restricted to the cognoscenti: Richard Williams, Don Fagerquist, Shorty Rogers, Cy Touff, Ernie Royal, Dupree Bolton,  Tony Fruscella, Jon Eardley, Don Ellis, Jack Sheldon, Herb Pomeroy. I'm sure readers can, and probably will, name some I forgot. 

Dupree Bolton

Herb Pomeroy

The playing of many of these guys does not fall easily into one category. They had mastered the bop idiom, but most were not strictly boppers. Some were cool, some partially so; some hot; some came from the West Coast, but didn't play "West Coast," some came from somewhere else but did; some chose the cutting edge, others went down the middle.

I'll hoist a glass to some of the players from this stellar decade in upcoming posts. Today, I'll feature one from the cognoscenti pile: Don Fagerquist. 

The Pothole of Periocity (Donald Byrd)

Here's what I mean: I played some 1950's Prestige tracks for a friend who knows a lot about jazz. He listened and said "I never knew Donald Byrd played like that." 


Another victim of the dreaded Pothole of Periocity. He knew the later stuff, didn't like it and never worked backward. The ease and access of music on the internet has eased the syndrome less than you might think.


Coltrane and Miles are probably the two most well-known examples of musicians who shed audience as they move through different periods. Some only go with Trane through his Prestige period, some through Atlantic, some through early Impulse and a few all the way through to the end.

How often do people who hook into Trane at Meditations go back to Blue Trane? Or, who pick up Miles at Tutu and go back to Embraceable You?

Donald Byrd (b.12/9/32) is another who made extreme enough changes that he exchanged much of his old audience for a new one. In this case, a larger one-and here the bugaboo of "selling out" rears its endless head (No comment). 


Interestingly, Byrd's music became more "pop" and "soul" oriented while he pursued advanced academic degrees: Masters in Music from Manhattan, Law degree from Columbia, Phd from Columbia University Teachers College in 1982. Here are examples of the change:


Straight ahead, 1958:



Soul/modal-1960



Funk/electric-1975:



Gotta say, it's early Byrd for me.


Who have you shed all along the way? Or picked up?