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Featured Artist
Jimmy Giuffre
Biography:
Jimmy Giuffre (pronounced JOO-free) was born April 26, 1921 and was a unique jazz player who started learning at the age of nine. Experimenting with tenor and baritone saxophones but, mostly, focused on clarinet; his early sound was self-formed with little precedent with the possible exception of Lester Young.
He graduated with a degree in music from North Texas State Teachers College and joined the Army where he played in an Armed Services quintet. He briefly studied graduate work in music but turned to working as a freelance arranger in the 40’s.
Many Big Band aficionados will remember Giuffre for his composition “Four Brothers” which was a huge smash for Wood Herman’s Second Heard in 1947. It established the characteristic Herman frontline sound of three tenor saxophones and a baritone saxophone, played fast, in harmony and without vibrato.
In the late 40’s through the 50’s, Giuffre studied composition with Wesley LaViolette. LaViolette encouraged Giuffre in the importance of ontrapuntal writing and counterpoint along with writing jazz compositions for more than just the front line. Giuffre began to pioneer the writing of specific parts for bass and drums to provide color and accent.
In the late 50’s, the Jimmy Giuffre 3 took shape. Giuffre, along with guitarist Jim Hall and bassist Ralph Pena, started to achieve commercial renown. With the replacement of Pena with trombonist Bob Brookmeyer, the Jimmy Giuffre 3 was immortalized in the famous film “Jazz on a Summer’s Day” playing “The Train and the River.”
Giuffre was long known for borrowing from a variety of influences and his late 50’s – early 60’s trios would show inspiration from Claude DeBussy though bluesy Amercana.
Also in the mid-50’s, Giuffre began teaching a the Lenox School of Jazz in Lenox, Mass. Though the school only lasted until 1960, it was there that Giuffre first encountered scholarship student Ornette Coleman. To say that Coleman’s energy and free spirit affected Giuffre would be an understatement. He began to explore free jazz with a fervor. The resulting sound wasn’t one to be compared with Alber Ayler or Archie Shepp, but a more mellow, hushed focus akin to chamber music. “1961” and “Free Fall” featuring Paul Bley on piano and Steve Swallow on bass were initially met with disregard, if not disgust. Years later, countless fans and students claim “Free Fall” to be a pivotal album with wide-reaching influence.
After the commercial failure of the early 60’s, Giuffre moved back to teaching with stints at Rutgers University, New York University, and later at the New England Conservatory for Music.
In the 80’s, Giuffre once again began recording with French saxophonist André Jaume exhibiting influences from Asia and Africa in the duo’s sound.
Sadly, Jimmy Giuffre passed away of pneumonia last April 24, 2008 at the age of 86 in his home state of Massachusetts. His fifty odd years of jazz evolution left an indelible mark on the sound of our nation.
Music:
1954 Jimmy Giuffre
1954 Tangents in Jazz
1956 The Jimmy Giuffre 3
1956 The Jimmy Giuffre Clarinet
1957 The Jimmy Giuffre 3
1958 Jimmy Giuffre Plays The Music Man
1958 Trav'lin' Light
1958 Western Suite
1959 The Easy Way
1959 The Four Brothers Sound
1961 Emphasis, Stuttgart 1961
1961 Flight, Bremen 1961
1961 Fusion
1961 Thesis
1963 Free Fall
1978 IAI Festival / Great American Music Hall / San Francisco
1983 Dragonfly
1985 Quasar
1989 Liquid Dancers
1990 Princess
1992 Fly Away Little Bird (with Paul Bley & Steve Swallow)
1995 Jimmy Giuffre with Jim Hall - Trio & Quartet
1996 Conversations With a Goose
2003 Emphasis & Flight, 1961
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