Barbara Donald

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Barbara Donald (born February 9, 1942 in Minneapolis , Minnesota , † March 23, 2013 in Olympia (Oregon) ) was an American jazz trumpeter .

Live and act

Barbara Donald started playing cornet when she was nine years old; she came to jazz through recordings by Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman . Eventually she switched to the trumpet and oriented herself towards musicians like Harry James , Cat Anderson and Maynard Ferguson . In 1955, her family moved to California ; she played there in the big band of her high school and began working with her own formations at an early age. Since she was denied admission to jazz big bands as a woman, she played in rhythm and blues , rock and roll and dance bands. After a short stay in New York, she finally worked in Los Angeles with some important jazz musicians. She studied with Benny Harris ; at the age of 19 she performed with Dexter Gordon , Stanley Cowell and Bert Wilson .

In the early 1960s she married the Norwegian pianist Ole Calmeyer ; however, the two soon separated again. In 1964 she met Sonny Simmons , who also became her mentor, and moved with him to San Diego . Barbara Donald and Sonny Simmons married and worked together from 1964 to 1972; In 1965 they moved to Hollywood . During this time she also played with Horace Tapscott and with John Coltrane . There were only a few albums that documented the game of Donald (in the band of Simmons); the two performed at the underground festival, the Berkeley Jazz Symposium . “On records like Staying on the Watch , Music of the Spheres and Manhattan Egos , her work with Simmons is long, precise lines of unison , and the sound of her solos is powerful and flowing. She can produce lines at lightning speed that also have the intensity of lightning or spread over a ballad with classic grace. "

Barbara Donald raised the two children, Zarak (* 1965) and Raïsha (* 1972); the family lived in San José in the Bay Area after a sometimes chaotic, semi-nomadic phase. She also played occasionally with Bert Wilson, James Zitro and other musicians there until 1975. Around 1978/79 she moved back to Los Angeles and tried her hand at being a session musician, but without much success. Back in San Jose, she performed a session with Simmons at the De Anza Hotel . Barbara Donald eventually moved to Olympia, Washington with her family to have a more peaceful atmosphere in which to write. At the beginning of 1980, she finally separated from Simmons.

In the early 1980s she formed her own formation again, the band Unity with saxophonist Carter Jefferson (who had worked for Woody Shaw ), bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Irvin Lovilette (1940-1983), who also became her new partner. During the recordings also included Gary Hammon , pianist Peggy Stern and bassist Michael Bisio the band. Two albums were released on the avant-garde label Cadence Jazz Records ; the existence of the band Unity ended with the sudden death of Irvin Lovilette.

Donald then moved to New York and worked there in 1984 with Gunter Hampel's Galaxy Dream Band . In a different line-up, she then presented Unity at the Kool Jazz Festival in June 1984, with Carter Jefferson, Gary Hammon, Ron Burton , bassist Charnett Moffett and their son Zarak as drummers. She then moved to the Seattle area . On some occasions she worked again with Sonny Simmons from 1982 onwards; For health reasons, however, she largely withdrew from the music scene after 1992.

Barbara Donald claims to have been influenced by the early deceased trumpeter Booker Little , as well as by the saxophonists John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy . She continued to record with Smiley Winters , Ed Kelly, and Bert Wilson. Scott Yanow emphasizes in the All Music Guide that she is one of the most important trumpet players of all time. Above all, he emphasizes her powerful and expressive playing, which unfortunately has hardly been documented on records, and mentions her impressive work for Cadence Jazz in the early 1980s.

Discographic notes

  • Sonny Simmons: Staying on the Watch ( ESP-Disk 1030, 1966)
  • Sonny Simmons: Music from the Spheres (ESP-Disk 1052, 1968)
  • Huey Simmons: Burning Spirits ( Contemporary Records 7625-26, 1971)
  • Barbara Donald: Olympia Live (Cadence Jazz Records CJR 1011, 1982)
  • Barbara Donald & Unity: The Past and Tomorrows (Cadence Jazz Records CJR 1017, 1982, with Carter Jefferson, Gary Hammon, Peggy Stern, Mike Bisio, Irvin Lovilette)

literature

Remarks

  1. ^ Paul de Barros: Olympia jazz-trumpet legend Barbara Donald dies. Seattle Times, March 30, 2013, accessed October 5, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Sally Placksin Women in Jazz , p. 288

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Donald, Barbara
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz musician
DATE OF BIRTH February 9, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Minneapolis , Minnesota , USA
DATE OF DEATH March 23, 2013
Place of death Olympia (Oregon)