Booker Little

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Booker Little, Jr. (* 2. April 1938 in Memphis (Tennessee) , † 5. October 1961 in New York City ) was an American jazz - trumpet player and composer of hard bop . At the beginning of the 1960s Little was “one of the most promising innovators of his instrument” and combined “the perfect fluency and the clear, warm tone of Clifford Brown with a more fiery approach and more modern harmonic and melodic ideas”, which pointed towards free jazz via hard bop .

Live and act

Little comes from a musical family; his parents played the trombone and the organ. Influenced in this way, he deepened his classical training in high school in addition to playing in a marching band , before studying with Andy Goodrich at the Conservatory in Chicago . In 1957 he began on the recommendation of Sonny Rollins in the band of Max Roach ; performed with this band in 1958 at the Newport Jazz Festival and was involved in Roach's Freedom Now Suite . In 1959 he went to New York , worked in clubs and with John Coltrane ( Afrika Brass Session, 1961), Slide Hampton , Teddy Charles and Sonny Stitt .

As early as 1960, his recordings with Tommy Flanagan and Wynton Kelly , Scott LaFaro and Roy Haynes ( The Legendary Quartet Album ) showed that he had a “full, mature and at the same time cracking sound” ( Jazz Journal ). 1961 followed legendary live recordings with Eric Dolphy , with whom he played in a quintet in the Five Spot (with Mal Waldron , Richard Davis , Ed Blackwell ). After a long illness, Booker Little died of uremia at the age of only 23 .

The trumpeter Booker Little belongs to such musicians as Fats Navarro , Eric Dolphy or Clifford Brown , who died at the beginning of a great musical career. His compositional and trumpet style, initially based on Miles Davis and Clifford Brown, is strongly influenced by the musical ideas of Charles Mingus , Duke Ellington and John Coltrane . He was one of the first trumpeters to consciously use dissonances and microtonal effects in jazz . Similar to Dolphy, he tried to "blow up the harmony from within". Trumpeters like Dave Douglas have made conscious use of these achievements.

Discography

as a leader

as a sideman

  • 1958 Max Roach: Deeds, Not Words (OJC)
  • 1959 Slide Hampton : Slide! (Fresh Sound)
  • 1960 Abbey Lincoln : Straight Ahead (Candid)
  • 1960 Eric Dolphy: Far Cry (OJC)
  • 1961 Max Roach: Percussion Bitter Suite (OJC)
  • 1961 Eric Dolphy: At The Five Spot Vol. 1 & 2 (OJC)
  • 1961 Eric Dolphy Memorial Album (OJC)
  • 1961 John Coltrane: Africa / Brass ( Impulse! Records )

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Martin Kunzler Jazz Lexicon . Volume 1. Reinbek 2002.
  2. ^ At the Goodwill Concert for the widow, Sonny Rollins made his comeback ( Jazz Gallery , Greenwich Village, November 1961).
  3. ↑ Republished as Lookin 'Ahead with additional recordings from 1961.
personal data
SURNAME Little, Booker
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Little, Booker Jr.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz musician
DATE OF BIRTH April 2, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Memphis (Tennessee)
DATE OF DEATH 5th October 1961
Place of death New York City