Maurice Spears

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Maurice Spears (* Oklahoma City ) is an American trombonist , music teacher and copyist who is best known as a session musician in the fields of jazz , rhythm and blues and pop music .

biography

Maurice Spears' parents owned a coffee shop in Oklahoma City, where jazz bands and soloists performed. At the age of 27 he led his own big band and various ensembles, with which he played in nightclubs and as a backing band for artists such as Lou Rawls , Jackie Wilson and Jesse Belvin , who have made guest appearances in Oklahoma .

He graduated from Langston University with a degree in music education and received a graduate degree from the University of Oklahoma at Norman. Did his military service at the Navy School of Music in Washington, DC ; later he was a member of the 62nd Army Band. In 1966 Spears moved to Los Angeles, where he became a member of the Ray Charles Orchestra in 1967 and toured worldwide. He has also worked on recordings for Buddy Collette , The Crusaders , Lionel Hampton , Herbie Hancock , Carmen McRae , Jimmy Smith and Gerald Wilson, among others .

He later taught public schools in Los Angeles and Oklahoma City; he is a mentor of a trumpet program of the Thurman Green Memorial Scholarship Foundation . He is also an international copyist, working for Benny Golson , the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, Oliver Nelson , Gerald Wilson , Benny Carter , Dr. John , Diana Krall , the WDR Big Band , James Morrison , Lena Horne or Peggy Lee .

In 1995 he founded the formation BoneSoir with his friends trombonists George Bohanon , Garnett Brown and Thurman Green . He currently plays in the Clayton - Hamilton Jazz Orchestra , where he also works as a librarian, copyist and bass trombonist.

Spears is also on recordings of Oscar Brashear ( Time Is Running Out and Hawthorne Nights , 1976), Horace Silver ( Silver 'n Brass , 1975, It's Got to Be Funky , 1993 and Pencil Packin' Papa , 1994), Earth, Wind & Fire ( I Am , 1979), Milt Jackson ( Explosive!, 1999), Michael Bublé ( Call Me Irresponsible , 2007) and most recently with Elvis Costello ( Church Underground ) and Elton John / Leon Russell's cooperation The Union (2010).

In 2004 he was inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Spears in the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame 2004
  2. ↑ a b See Richard Cook , Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD . 6th edition. Penguin, London 2002, ISBN 0-14-051521-6 .
  3. ↑ Entry on Discogs
personal data
SURNAME Spears, Maurice
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American trombonist and copyist
DATE OF BIRTH 20th century
PLACE OF BIRTH Oklahoma City , Oklahoma