John Gordon (trombonist)

John B. Gordon (* the thirtieth May 1939 in New York City , † 2003 ) was an American trombonist of modern jazz .

Live and act

Gordon learned to play the trombone at school and later took private lessons. He started out in rhythm and blues bands before playing with Lionel Hampton and Lloyd Price . He worked in Broadway orchestras in the 1960s and 1970s , but also performed with Clark Terry , Count Basie , Frank Foster , Charles Tolliver, and Howard McGhee . In 1975 he recorded his debut album Step By Step in a sextet with Charles Tolliver, Roland Alexander , Stanley Cowell , Lisle Atkinson and Andrew Cyrille , which was released on Strata-East Records , followed by Erotica Suite (1976), with Waymon Reed , James Spaulding , John Miller (keyboards), Lisle Atkinson and Frank Derrick . In 1987 he played with Al Gray or Benny Powell and Fred Joiner and a rhythm section as Trombones Incorporated . Then he founded the group Trombones Unlimited with Gray, Lou Blackburn and Slide Hampton , with which he toured internationally. This later became the Trombone Summit . He also played with Thilo Berg and can also be heard on recordings by Axel Zwingenberger with Lionel Hampton and his band (1982). In 1992 he presented the album John Gordon Quartet on Chiaroscuro Records , which he had recorded with Kevin Hays , Scott Colley and Bill Stewart . In the field of jazz he was involved in 21 recording sessions between 1969 and 2001, most recently with the Nancie Banks Orchestra, of which he had been a member since the early 1990s.

Andrew Cyrille dedicated the piece "Proximity" to him.

Martin Kunzler : Jazz Lexicon. Volume 1: A – L (= rororo-Sachbuch. Vol. 16512). 2nd Edition. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-499-16512-0 .
Otto Flückiger, John Gordon: NYC Trombone Master: Biography-Discography Jazz Profile 1982.