Tom Harrell (born June 16, 1946)[1] is an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist, composer, and arranger. Voted Trumpeter of the Year of 2018 by Jazz Journalists Association, Harrell has won awards and grants throughout his career, including multiple Trumpeter of the Year awards from DownBeat magazine,[2]SESAC Jazz Award, BMI (Broadcast Music Incorporated) Composers Award, and Prix Oscar du Jazz. He received a Grammy Award nomination for his big band album, Time's Mirror.
Tom Harrell was born in Urbana, Illinois, United States,[1] but moved to the San Francisco Bay Area at the age of five. He started playing trumpet at eight, and within five years he was playing gigs with local bands. In 1969 he graduated from Stanford University with a music composition degree and joined Stan Kenton's orchestra, touring and recording with them throughout 1969.[3] Harrell pursued his musical career despite experiencing symptoms of schizophrenia since he was an adolescent.[4]
After leaving Kenton, Harrell played with Woody Herman's big band (1970–1971), Azteca (1972), the Horace Silver Quintet (1973–1977), with whom he made five albums, the Sam Jones-Tom Harrell Big Band, the Lee Konitz Nonet (1979–1981), George Russell, and the Mel Lewis Orchestra (1981).[1] From 1983 to 1989, he was a pivotal member of the Phil Woods Quintet and made seven albums with the group.[1]
While Harrell recorded several albums as a leader during his tenure with the Phil Woods Quintet, it was after his departure that he started producing albums as a leader, in succession for Contemporary Records (now owned by Concord), Chesky, and RCA/BMG. During his years as a BMG artist (1996–2003) first with RCA, then Bluebird and finally Arista, Harrell made six albums, many of which feature his arrangements for larger groups. Since the early 1990s, Harrell has toured and performed with his own groups of various sizes and instrumentation.[5]
Since 1989 Harrell has led his own groups, usually quintets but occasionally expanded ensembles such as chamber orchestras with strings, and big bands. He has appeared at most major jazz clubs and festival venues, and recorded under his own name for such record labels as RCA, Contemporary, Pinnacle, Blackhawk, Criss Cross, SteepleChase, Chesky, and HighNote.[3]
In contrast to his signature recordings during the RCA/BMG years (1996–2003), where much of his focus was on projects involving large ensembles, big bands and chamber orchestras, Harrell's more recent works demonstrate his skills as a leader of a tight, smaller unit. Harrell's later quintet of tenor saxophonist Wayne Escoffery, pianist Danny Grissett, bassist Ugonna Okegwo (who has performed with Harrell since 1997), and drummer Johnathan Blake,[12] was noted for the strong chemistry between the musicians and the distinctive sound achieved primarily through Harrell's compositions.[13][14] It recorded five albums for HighNote:[15]Light On, Prana Dance, Roman Nights, The Time of the Sun, and Number Five. For the last of these, Harrell received his seventh SESAC Jazz Award.[16]
Tom Harrell Chamber Ensemble
In June 2012, Harrell debuted his nine-piece chamber ensemble at the Highline Ballroom as part of the Blue Note Jazz Festival. Harrell arranged the music of Debussy, Ravel, and his own compositions for this ensemble, which consists of trumpet, soprano and tenor saxophones, c-flute and bass flute, violin, cello, acoustic guitar, piano, bass, and drums.[17] The Tom Harrell Chamber Ensemble has since performed at the Village Vanguard, Autumn Jazz Festival in Bielsko Biala, the Jazz Standard, the Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival, the Scripps Auditorium in San Diego, and Soka University Performing Arts Center in Aliso Viejo, CA. Harrell considers the arrangements and compositions some of the most challenging works he has written to date.[17][18][additional citation(s) needed]
Colors of a Dream
In 2013, Harrell formed a piano-less sextet with two basses called Colors of a Dream, which comprises himself on trumpet and flugelhorn, Wayne Escoffery on tenor saxophone, Jaleel Shaw on alto saxophone, Johnathan Blake on drums, Ugonna Okegwo on bass and Esperanza Spalding doubling on bass and vocal. The group debuted at the Village Vanguard during its six-night run starting March 26, 2013 and the second night's performance was webcast for live streaming by NPR.[19][20] A studio album by the same name was released on October 22, 2013, for which Harrell received his eighth SESAC Jazz Awards the following year.[21][22]
TRIP
Harrell also recorded with TRIP, a piano-less quartet featuring saxophonist Mark Turner, bassist Ugonna Okegwo and drummer Adam Cruz in 2013. The group first performed in Rochester, New York, and at the Jazz Standard during Dave Douglas' Festival of New Trumpet Music (FONT) in October 2012. Harrell premiered the suite with six sections he wrote specifically for this group. TRIP reconvened a year later at the Village Vanguard and made a studio recording the following week.[20][23] The quartet released the self-titled album TRIP on August 12, 2014.[24]
Chris Potter is an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist.
Douglas Purviance is a jazz trombonist. He began his professional career as a member of the Stan Kenton Orchestra, playing bass trombone and tuba from 1975 to 1977. Mostly, he works as a studio session bass trombonist and is not known for improvising.
Rodney Whitaker is an American jazz double bass player and educator.
Gary Smulyan is a jazz musician who plays baritone saxophone. He studied at Hofstra University before working with Woody Herman. He leads a trio with bassist Ray Drummond and drummer Kenny Washington.
Sam Newsome is an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and educator. His music combines straight-ahead jazz, world music and experimental jazz, which uses extended techniques. Newsome is an associate professor of music and the coordinator of the music program at Long Island University's Brooklyn Campus.
Ralph Peterson Jr. was an American jazz drummer and bandleader.
Steve Wilson is an American jazz multi-instrumentalist, who is best known in the musical community as a flutist and an alto and soprano saxophonist. He also plays the clarinet and the piccolo. Wilson performs on many different instruments and has performed and recorded on over twenty-five albums. His interests include folk, jazz, classical, world music, and experimental music. Wilson is currently on the faculty of New England Conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts. He was elected as an American Champion by the National Flute Association. Wilson has maintained a busy career working as a session musician, and has contributed to many musicians of note both in the recording studios, but as a sideman on tours. Over the years he has participated in engagements with several musical ensembles, as well as his own solo efforts.
Peter Washington is a jazz double bassist. He played with the Westchester Community Symphony at the age of 14. Later he played electric bass in rock bands. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he majored in English Literature, and performed with the San Francisco Youth Symphony and the UC Symphony Orchestra. His growing interest in jazz led him to play with John Handy, Bobby Hutcherson, Harold Land, Frank Morgan, Ernestine Anderson, Chris Connor and other Bay Area luminaries. In 1986 he joined Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers and moved to New York City. Beginning in the 1990s, he toured with the Tommy Flanagan trio until Flanagan's death in 2001, and has played with the Bill Charlap trio since 1997. He was a founding member of the collective hard bop sextet One for All and is a visiting artist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Luis Perdomo is an American Grammy® Award winning jazz pianist and composer.
Roman Nights is a 2010 album by jazz trumpeter, composer and arranger, Tom Harrell. It is the third release with Harrell's 2010-quintet of over five years, which includes Wayne Escoffery, Danny Grissett, Ugonna Okegwo and Johnathan Blake. The album contains nine original compositions by Harrell. The title track is a flugelhorn-piano duet performance by Harrell and Grissett.
Live at the Village Vanguard is a Tom Harrell album recorded for RCA with Harrell's then quintet and released in 2002. The band included Jimmy Greene on tenor sax, Ugonna Okegwo on bass, Xavier Davis on piano and Quincy Davis on drums. This is Harrell's first live album. A JazzTimes review called the album "a worthy addition to the library of recordings made at the Vanguard". With the exception of the 1940 standard "Everything Happens to Me", the album consists of mostly new compositions.
Dennis Mackrel is an American jazz drummer, composer, and arranger who was a member of the Count Basie Orchestra and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra.
The Time of the Sun is an album by jazz trumpeter, composer and arranger, Tom Harrell, that was released in May 2011 by HighNote Records. It is the fourth album by Harrell's 2011-quintet of over six years, which includes Wayne Escoffery, Danny Grissett, Ugonna Okegwo and Johnathan Blake. The other albums by this group are Roman Nights, Prana Dance, and Light On. As with most of his album releases, Harrell composed all the tracks on this album. The title track is notable for the use of sounds produced by the magnetic field in the outer atmosphere of the Sun, recorded by the astronomers at the University of Sheffield and Stanford University. Harrell received his sixth SESAC Jazz Award for this album, which topped the radio charts in the United States.
Prana Dance is a studio album by American jazz musician Tom Harrell, released on January 27, 2009, by HighNote Records and recorded on May 29, 2008, and June 10, 2008. Down Beat magazine praised the album stating that it "signals a new career high" and added, "Music that operates at this level of structural, emotional and psychic integration is rare."
Light On is a jazz album by trumpeter-composer Tom Harrell released in 2007 through HighNote Records. This is the first album recorded by Harrell's then recent quintet. The group went on to release five albums between 2007 and 2012 and forms the core of a sixth album released in 2013. The group consists of Wayne Escoffery on sax, Danny Grissett on piano, Ugonna Okegwo on bass, and Johnathan Blake on drums. In 2007, the album topped the U.S. jazz radio chart and received a SESAC jazz award in the following year.
Number Five is a studio album by jazz trumpeter, composer, and arranger, Tom Harrell, released in May 2012 by HighNote.
Mike Moreno is a jazz guitarist and composer from Houston, Texas.
Colors of a Dream is the sixth HighNote Records album by trumpeter-composer Tom Harrell, featuring two basses played by Ugonna Okegwo and Esperanza Spalding, with the latter doubling on vocal, Jaleel Shaw on alto saxophone, Wayne Escoffery on tenor saxophone, and Johnathan Blake on drums. The album was released on October 22, 2013, and the sextet is expected to tour in the summer of 2014.
Ugonna Okegwo is a German-Nigerian jazz bassist and composer based in New York City.
Uoniverse is an album by jazz bassist Ugonna Okegwo released in 2002. The album is Okegwo's first release as a leader. The album consists of five original compositions by Okegwo and five new arrangements of jazz classics, including Thelonious Monk's "Let's Call This". Jazzreview.com gave the album a rating of 4 stars and called Okegwo one of the leading bassists of his generation. All About Jazz highly recommended the album, calling it "truly diverse" and the band's rhythm "impeccable".
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
