Image

5:43 PM / Sunday February 16, 2025

14 Feb 2013

Legendary fusion jazz trumpeter Donald Byrd dead at 80

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
February 14, 2013 Category: Entertainment Posted by:

associated press

 

DOVER, Del.  – Jazz musician Donald Byrd, a leading hard-bop trumpeter of the 1950s who collaborated on dozens of albums with top artists of his time and later enjoyed commercial success with hit jazz-funk fusion records such as Black Byrd, has died. He was 80.

 

He died Feb. 4 in Delaware, according to Haley Funeral Directors in a Detroit suburb, which is handling arrangements. It didn’t have details on his death.

 

Byrd, who was also a pioneer in jazz education, attended Cass Technical High School in Detroit, played in military bands in the Air Force and moved to New York in 1955. The trumpeter, whose given name was Donaldson Toussaint L’Ouverture Byrd II, rose to prominence when he joined Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers later that year, filling the seat in the bebop group held by his idol Clifford Brown.

 

He soon became one of the most in-demand trumpeters on the New York scene, playing with Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk. He also began his recording career by leading sessions for Savoy and other labels.

 

In 1958, he signed an exclusive recording contract with the Blue Note label and formed a band with a fellow Detroit native, baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams, making their label debut with the 1959 album Off to the Races.. The band became one of the leading exponents of the hard-bop style, which evolved from bebop and blended in elements of R&B, soul and gospel music. A 1961 recording, Free Form, brought attention to a promising young pianist, Herbie Hancock.

 

In the 1960s, Byrd, who had received his master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music, turned his attention to jazz education. He studied in Paris with composer Nadia Boulanger, became the first person to teach jazz at Rutgers University in New Jersey, and started the jazz studies department at Howard University in Washington.

 

Byrd began moving toward a more commercial sound with the funk-jazz fusion album Fancy Free in 1969, taking a path followed by fellow trumpeters Miles Davis and Freddie Hubbard. He teamed up with the Mizell brothers to release Black Byrd in 1973, a blend of jazz, R&B and funk that became Blue Note’s highest selling album at the time.

 

Jazz critics panned Byrd for deviating from the jazz mainstream, but he was unperturbed.

 

“I’m creative; I’m not re-creative,” Byrd told the Detroit Free Press in a 1999 interview. “I don’t follow what everybody else does.”

 

Byrd invited several of his best students at Howard to join a jazz-fusion group called the Blackbyrds that reached a mainstream audience with a sound heavy on R&B and rock influences. The band landed in the Top 10 on the R&B charts with the mid-’70s albums Street Lady, Stepping Into Tomorrow and Place and Spaces.

 

In 1982, Byrd, who also had a law degree, received his doctorate from New York’s Teachers College, Columbia University, and turned his attention from performing to education. Byrd, a longtime resident of New Jersey, was a distinguished scholar at William Paterson University and twice served as an artist-in-residence at Delaware State University.

 

Byrd didn’t have much training in mathematics but created a groundbreaking curriculum called Music + Math (equals) Art, in which he transformed notes into numbers to simultaneously teach music and math.

 

“I can take any series of numbers and turn it into music, from Bach to bebop, Herbie Hancock to hip-hop,” he told The Star-Ledger newspaper of Newark.

 

In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, he returned to playing hard-bop on several albums for the Landmark label, which also featured saxophonists Kenny Garrett and Joe Henderson.

 

He performed on Guru’s 1993 jazz-rap album, Jazzmatazz, Vol. 1, and his recordings were sampled on more than 100 hip-hop songs by such performers as Black Moon, Nas, Ludacris and A Tribe Called Quest.

 

In 2000, the National Endowment for the Arts recognized Byrd as a Jazz Master, the highest U.S. jazz honor.

 

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Leave a Comment

Recent News

Color Of Money

Pennsylvania governor seeks more money for schools and transit, but relies heavily on surplus cash

February 10, 2025

Share Tweet Email Governor Josh Shapiro presents his 2025-26 budget proposal to the Pa. General Assembly, as...

Seniors

How Type 2 inflammation contributes to asthma, COPD, and allergic conditions

February 3, 2025

Share Tweet Email BPT Do you live with persistent, moderate-to-severe asthma, COPD, allergies, eczema or hives? Inflammation...

SUNrise

cj speaks…Celebrating in forgiveness for Black History Month

February 10, 2025

Share Tweet Email By cj “This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and...

Week In Review

Black History Month explained: Its origins, celebrations and myths

February 10, 2025

Share Tweet Email This undated photo provided by the Association for the Study of African American Life...

Commentary

Commentary: The Retirement Party

January 19, 2025

Share Tweet Email President Joe Biden speaks about student loan debt at Madison College, April 8, 2024,...

Health

What you need to know about glaucoma

February 10, 2025

Share Tweet Email FAMILY FEATURES More than 4.2 million Americans live with glaucoma, a leading cause of...

The Philadelphia Sunday Sun Staff