Juan Tizol

Juan Tizol (1943)

Juan Tizol (born January 22, 1900 in San Juan , Puerto Rico , † April 23, 1984 in Inglewood , California ) was a jazz musician.

Live and act

Juan Tizol, born in 1908 according to other sources, played valve trombone . Tizol came to the United States from San Juan in 1920 to work with Marie Lucas at the Howard Theater in Washington. When this band lost their regular engagement, Tizol quickly found a new job with Duke Ellington . Although he was never highlighted as a soloist at Ellington as often as his colleagues, his valve trombone helped Ellington to create a new sound for his orchestra, because due to the technical advantages of a valve trombone compared to the slide trombone Tizol, the sheet music of the saxophonist was often used. Ellington Tizol also wrote difficult passages “on the body” - technically for slide trombones. His tone is therefore described as soft and sweet, sometimes 'sweetish'.

Tizol himself hardly improvised at all, but his most important contributions were those of the section player and those as a composer and arranger (e.g. Caravan , Perdido ). He can be heard on the Ellington records with Latin American influences, which he wrote himself or with Ellington, such as Moonlight Fiesta 1935, Caravan 1937, Pyramid 1938, Conga Brava 1940, Bakiff and Moon Over Cuba 1941.

In 1944 Tizol left Ellington and performed sporadically with Woody Herman's band until he was hired by Harry James , with whom he played for seven years. In 1951 Tizol returned to Ellington for a brief period. The rest of the time, until his death in Los Angeles in 1984, Tizol worked for many different band leaders and also singers such as Frank Sinatra and Nat "King" Cole .

Discographic notice

• Duke Ellington at Fargo, 1940 Live