Bobbi Humphrey

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Barbara Ann "Bobbi" Humphrey (born April 25, 1950 in Marlin , Texas ) is an American flautist, alto saxophonist and singer who combines soul jazz , funk and fusion music in her own crossover style .

biography

Humphrey is African American and grew up in Dallas . She began studying the flute in high school and continued studying at Texas Southern University from 1968 to 1970 and Southern Methodist University in 1971 (one of her teachers was Hubert Laws ). Dizzy Gillespie heard her there and encouraged her to go to New York, where she appeared in 1971 on "Amateur Night" at the Apollo Theater in Harlem (once the stepping stone for Ella Fitzgerald ). With her main instrument, the flute, she played a. a. with Duke Ellington (in a gig on the third day of their arrival in New York), Lee Morgan , Cannonball Adderley , Roland Kirk , Dizzy Gillespie and Herbie Mann . Her first album "Flute In" was released in 1971 on Blue Note Records , as one of the first women ever to get a contract there. Other successful Blue Note albums followed, such as Dig This (1972), Blacks and Blues (1973, with the R&B hits Chicago, Damn and Harlem River Drive ) and Satin Doll (1974). In the same year she performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival , where she was described by jazz critic Leonard Feather as the surprise of the festival. These recordings were also released on LP.

In 1976 and 1978 she was named Best Female Instrumental Musician by Billboard . In 1977 she released Tailor Made , now under contract with Epic Records . The year before, Stevie Wonder asked her into the recording studio for his hit album Songs in the Key of Life . She also performed again in Montreux and became an honorary citizen of New Orleans.

In addition, she founded her own music publisher “Bobbi Humphrey Music Inc.” (with which she worked with Warner Brothers from the 1990s, for whom she discovered the singer Tevin Campbell ) and an agency in which she organizes her performances and business activities. For example, she composed music for Anheuser-Busch advertising and for the Bill Cosby show. She is also socially and politically active and spoke to the United Nations about the drought in Ethiopia in the 1980s. Humphrey's album Passion Flute was released in 1994 on their newly founded label "Paradise Sounds Records".

Discography

  • 1971: Flute-in (Blue Note)
  • 1972: Dig This! (Blue note)
  • 1973: Blacks and Blues (Blue Note)
  • 1974: Satin Doll (Blue Note)
  • 1974: Live in Montreux (Blue Note)
  • 1975: Fancy Dancer (Blue Note)
  • 1977: Tailor Made (Epic)
  • 1978: Freestyle (Epic)
  • 1979: The Good Life (Epic)
  • 1988: City Beat (Malaco)
  • 1994: Passion Flute (Paradise Sounds)

literature

  • Kunzler "Jazz Lexicon", 2002

Web links

Remarks

  1. On her homepage it says that she would have been the first ever, but Jutta Hipp got ahead of her in the 1950s