Kenny Dorham: Underrated, Unnoticed and Unseen [From the Archives]

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“… Dorham’s solos are models of grace and tact, always giving an impression of careful construction and development, and an unfailing sense of texture.”

Richard Cook and Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6^th Ed.

“Kenny Dorham’s harmonic inventiveness influence trumpet players and sax players alike.”

-Randy Sandke, in Bill Kirchner, Ed., The Oxford Companion to Jazz

“Kenny Dorham is firmly and flowingly himself. He has evolved into one of the most lyrical improvisers in Jazz, but that lyricism is also unusually incisive. There is a consistent clarity and definiteness in Kenny’s playing that makes his work tensile as well as sensitive.”

- Nat Hentoff, insert notes, Una Mas [verb tense changed]

“Dorham’s velvety tone and inventive, incisive solos make him among the most unique trumpeters and gifted melodic improvisers to emerge in the 1950s.”

- Len Lyons, Jazz Portraits” The Lives & Music of the Jazz Masters

“It seems that every time you read about Kenny Dorham, someone is referring to him as ‘a greatly underrated trumpeter.’ I’ve probably been guilty of this myself. I say guilty because if all the energy expended by Jazz writers and commentators in lamenting Kenny’s lack of proper recognition , was turned toward a more positive extolling of his many virtues, perhaps he would be much further ahead in his career. Certainly, he is one of the very best trumpeters in Jazz.”

- Ira Gitler, insert notes, Whistle Stop

“His peers and knowledgeable listeners never ignored Dorham’s accomplishments. Indeed trumpet players as diverse as Randy Brecker and Byron Stripling have acknowledged their debt to him. But until some of the young musicians of the [nineteen] nineties spread the word, his work had received little general attention for a couple of decades. If the emerging generation of players will use Kenny Dorham as a model not for imitation, but to inspire the hard work of making their own artistry blossom, his spirit will brighten the future of Jazz as it illuminated the past.”

- Doug Ramsey, insert notes, Savoy Jazz Original, Kenny Dorham, Blues in Bebop

While doing a bit of research recently on tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, the thought came to mind that his frequent front-line partner, trumpeter Kenny Dorham, was an often overlooked figure in Jazz circles, then and now.

Dorham was somehow considered a “second-tiered” trumpeter when compared to the life of Dizzy, Miles, Clifford Brown and other modern Jazz trumpet luminaries.

Kenny’s name is still rarely mentioned today which is surprising given the number of high profile groups that he performed with, the huge discography he was involved with both under his own name and with other significant Jazz musicians, and the fact that he created a style or sound on the trumpet that is as instantly recognizable as Diz’s, Miles’ or Brownie’s.

Rummaging around our collection of Jazz recordings and books only served to further heighten the question of why Kenny is so often ignored because when one looks for it, there is quite a bit of information available about Dorham’s career and his music.

I thought it might be fun to gather some of these writings about Kenny into a feature as a way of remembering him or, if you will, memorializing him.

© -Mark Lescovic/Jazz.com, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Kenny Dorham has been scandalously undervalued in the jazz trumpet lineage. His breathy tone was not the immediate warmth of Clifford Brown, and his airy attack was less piercing than Lee Morgan, but careful listeners will hear him to be one of the more gifted trumpeters of the bebop and hard bop eras.

Dorham possessed a rare, soft and vulnerable sound that is soothing and instantly identifiable. Eschewing the typical trumpeter's showmanship and flashiness, Dorham instead relied on his economical melodic logic in constructing poetic, lyrical improvisations with meaningful beginnings, middles, and ends.

His technique is also unique: Dorham chose to attack notes with his tongue, where most of his bebop contemporaries would slur for a more continuous flow. His clearly articulated lines had a singular running quality to them that fleetly pushed ahead of the time.

At mid-tempos, Dorham distinctly articulated an exaggerated staccato swing feel, greatly contrasting his double-timed legato phrases. On ballads, Dorham would not stray far from the melody, his minimalist approach exposing the innate beauty of each melody he touched. His idiosyncratic use of grace notes, varied attacks on single notes, such as scooping underneath or bending above the pitch, and stuttering repetitions of notes were some of the personal nuances that decorated his deceptively complex improvisations.

Paradoxically, the fact that Dorham was nearly always the first-call replacement in all-star groups, which should be a testament to his talents, has led to a perception that he was a second-tier trumpeter, when nothing is farther from the truth. Dorham replaced Fats Navarro in Billy Eckstine’s band in 1946, Miles Davis in Charlie Parker’s quintet in 1949, and Clifford Brown in Art Blakey and Horace Silver’s Jazz Messengers in 1954 and again in the Max Roach group in 1956.”

- Matt Leskovic, Jazz.com

© -Ian Carr, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Dorham started the piano at age seven and took up the trumpet in high school. From 1945-8 he played with Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Eckstine, Lionel Hampton and Mercer Ellington. He replaced Miles Davis in the Charlie Parker quintet from 1948-50, playing with Parker at the Paris jazz festival in 1949. He freelanced in New York during the early 1950s, and in 1954 was a founder-member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. Dorham was a star soloist on the great 1954 album which was the blueprint for the Messengers, Horace Silver And The Jazz Messengers. From 1956-8 he replaced Clifford Brown in the Max Roach quintet, and played superlatively on another classic album of the 1950s, Max Roach 4 Plays Charlie Parker. During the late 1950s and the 1960s he led various groups of his own, composed and played music for some films, worked with Joe Henderson and Hank Mobley, toured internationally and played major festivals. Dorham recorded with Parker, Coltrane, Monk, Oliver Nelson, Tadd Dameron, J.J. Johnson and Sonny Rollins, and some of his finest playing was done on other people's albums. He died of kidney failure in 1972.

Dorham was one of the first bebop trumpeters, and had something of the fleetness of Gillespie and the sonority of Miles Davis. By the beginning of the 1950s he had absorbed his influences and found his own individual voice on trumpet. He was a brilliant player who was never glib, and could project great lyricism even at fast tempos, producing astonishingly long lines of fluid triplets. He was also a magnificent blues play­er, because his fluidity of execution was accompanied by all the tonal inflexions of the vocal blues tradition. Dorham influenced and inspired countless trumpeters all over the world, but never himself broke through to a wider audience or got all the recognition he was due, because he was overshadowed by Davis and Fats Navarro in the 1940s and Clifford Brown and others in the 1950s and 1960s. He was a fine composer, and one of his pieces, "Blue Bossa", has become part of the general jazz repertoire.”

- Ian Carr, Jazz:  The Rough Guide [p. 176]

© -Kenny Mathieson, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Kenny Dorham was one of those musicians fated to be always the bridesmaid, never the bride when it came to handing out the trumpet honors. Throughout his career, he stood in the shadow of more mercurial talents like Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown or Lee Morgan, and, for that matter, less virtuoso but more popular masters like Miles Davis and Chet Baker - Kenny couldn't win either way. The extra luster reflected from these great horn men should not dazzle us into underestimating Dorham's own considerable capabilities. He was highly adept technically, had a fine sense of swing, and deep roots in a blues sensibility. His sound was generally dark and a little astringent, and he liked to develop his melodic ideas in a lucid, carefully structured, and often understated fashion (David Rosenthal calls it 'austere') which depended more on subtle nuances of tone and rhythmic accent than on pyrotechnics.

He was the perfect example of the musician's musician, and the high regard of his peers is reflected in his credits as a sideman. He cut his teeth with the seminal bebop big bands of Billy Eckstine and Dizzy Gillespie, recorded with Fats Navarro and Bud Powell for Savoy, and took Miles Davis's place in Charlie Parker's quintet in 1948 (he is heard on some of the saxophonist's live sessions from the Royal Roost - there is a good solo on the version of 'Hot House' from 15 January, 1949 - and the Verve studio set Swedish Schnapps among others).

The distinguished roster of leaders who gave Dorham a call also included Lionel Hampton, Art Blakey, J. J. Johnson, Stan Getz, Milt Jackson, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Lou Donaldson, Tadd Dameron, Gil Melle, Phil Woods, Ernie Henry, Hank Mobley, Matthew Gee, Herb Geller, Benny Golson, Abbey Lincoln, Betty Carter, Cecil Taylor, Randy Weston, Oliver Nelson, Harold Land, Clifford Jordan, Jackie McLean, Joe Henderson, Andrew Hill, Cedar Walton, and Barry Harris. He was a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and was part of Max Roach's group for two years. He worked frequently throughout his career with baritone saxophonist Cecil Payne. The baritone was an instrument which appealed to him, and he incorporated it frequently in his own groups. Space prevents consideration of his work as a sideman here, but no understanding of Dorham's music would be complete without hearing at least some of it.

He was born McKinley Howard Dorham in Fairfield, Texas, on 30 August 1924, into a musical family. He vacillated between music and boxing through high school and as a science student at Wiley College, Texas (where he played in the Wiley Collegians band which also included pianist Wild Bill Davis and drummer Roy Porter), but finally opted for a career in music in 1945. He moved to New York (where he was initially known as Kinny) after his military service, and took advantage of the GI Bill to study composition and arranging at Gotham School of Music in 1948. A useful compilation of Dorham's scattered contributions as a sideman in the late 1940s was issued as Blues in Bebop in 1998.

He began the 1950s as a freelance, and played on Thelonious Monk's classic Genius of Modern Music for Blue Note in 1952, then made his debut as a leader with a session cut on 15 December, 1953, for Debut, the label run by Charles Mingus and Max Roach. Kenny Dorham Quintet featured Jimmy Heath on tenor and baritone saxophones, Walter Bishop on piano, Percy Heath on bass, and Kenny Clarke on drums. The trumpeter came up with some very pleasing arrangements on the six tunes, including his own uptempo swinger 'An Oscar For Oscar' (the dedicatee is Oscar Goodstein, the owner of Birdland) and tunes like Monk's 'Ruby, My Dear' and Osie Johnson's 'Osmosis'. A couple of previously unreleased blues outings were added to the CD issue.

Just over a year later, Dorham replaced Clifford Brown in the band which became The Jazz Messengers, and was still a Messenger when he cut his first Blue Note date. Afro-Cuban eventually featured material from two sessions, but was initially released as a 10-inch LP with four tunes featuring the Cuban percussionist Carlos 'Potato' Valdes, recorded on 29 March, 1955. The session featured the first studio recordings of three of Dorham's best compositions, 'Afrodisia', the lovely 'Lotus Flower', and 'Minor's Holiday', named for another trumpeter, Minor Robinson (an excellent alternate take is included on the CD issue), and a Gigi Gryce chart, 'Basheer's Dream'.

The trumpeter adopts unusually punchy single note lines, a strat­egy which led the Penguin Guide to note that 'Dorham never sounded more like Dizzy Gillespie than on Afro-Cuban', an impression enhanced by the rhythmic concept. The octet featured J. J. Johnson on trombone, fellow Messenger Hank Mobley on tenor and Cecil Payne on baritone saxophone, and a rhythm section of Horace Silver on piano, Oscar Pettiford on bass, and Art Blakey on drums. The remaining selections on the first 12-inch LP release, all by Dorham, came from a session on 30 January, featuring a sextet with Mobley, Payne, Silver, Blakey, and bassist Percy Heath. The CD issue now includes an additional track released as 'K.D.'s Cab Ride', but later discovered to have been given the somewhat more romantic title 'Echo of Spring' by the composer.

Dorham contributed to Tadd Dameron's classic Fontainebleau for Prestige in March, 1956, and was back in the studio as a leader on 4 April. He had decided to set up his own group along similar lines to The Messengers, to be known as Kenny Dorham and The Jazz Prophets, with J. R. Monterose on tenor, Dick Katz on piano, Sam Jones on bass and Arthur Edgehill on drums. He cut a session under that name for Chess, with the optimistic addition of Volume 1 to the title, a gambit which proved less than prophetic, since there was no follow-up. The Prophet' is the outstanding track of the five cut that day, a surging minor key workout which follows the initial statement of the catchy theme with a delicate staccato trading of thematic material between Dorham and tenor saxophonist J. R. Monterose, then opens out into expansive solos and a return to the theme.

'Tahitian Suite', also in the minor, shifts from the 6/8 of the theme to standard 4/4 for the solos, and is the first of several tunes inspired by distant places. Dorham adopted a mute on 'Blues Elegante' and 'Don't Explain', but succeeded in not sounding like Miles in the process, while 'DX', is an up-tempo workout.

Monterose, an interesting but relatively neglected saxophonist from Detroit who played with Charles Mingus on the classic Pith­ecanthropus Erectus (although it was not a happy experience for him), is in fine form on this session, apart from an intermittently squeaking reed, notably on 'Tahitian Suite'. His subsequent debut as leader for Blue Note, J. R. Monterose, recorded on 21 October, 1956, is worth seeking out.

A version of the Jazz Prophets band is featured on Dorham's 'Round About Midnight at The Café Bohemia, with Bobby Timmons replacing Katz on piano, and Kenny Burrell added on guitar. Recorded for Blue Note over a single long night on 31 May, 1956, it captures the band in fine fettle, while underlining the quality of his writing in two additions to his exotic travelogue, 'Monaco* and 'Mexico City', as well as the bop fundamentalism of 'The Prophet', 'Riffin" and 'K.D.'s Blues'. His original and engaging melodies and marked structural awareness have won him a fair amount of critical praise as a composer, but with the exception of the ubiquitous 'Blue Bossa', that admiration has not really been reflected in the take-up of his tunes by other players (Don Sickler's Music of Kenny Dorham on the Uptown label in 1983 was an obvious exception).

Dorham joined Max Roach's band as a replacement for Clifford Brown following the trumpeter's tragic death in June, 1956, and remained with the drummer for two years, avoiding the jinx which Roach feared afflicted his trumpet players in that era (both Brown and Booker Little suffered premature deaths). He cut several albums with Roach during that association, and also continued to record as a leader.

Jazz Contrasts, made for Riverside on 21 May, 1957, is one of his strongest statements on record. The contributions of harpist Betty Glamman on three carefully arranged ballads will not suit all tastes, although the instrument is effectively employed to complement the rhythm section of Hank Jones on piano, Oscar Pettiford on bass (Glamman was a member of his big band), and Max Roach on drums, with Sonny Rollins as the second horn. Dorham is a fine ballad player in any setting, and shines on Gigi Gryce's arrangements of 'My Old Flame' and Clifford Brown's 'Larue', a heartfelt tribute to the late trumpeter, as well as his own arrangement of 'But Beautiful'.

Both Dorham and Rollins are in fiery mood on the up-tempo material. Dorham negotiates the skittering eighth notes and flying triplets of a manic 'I'll Remember April' and his own equally energized 'La Villa' (a tune first recorded on Afro-Cuban) with real poise and command. His lines are clean, sharply articulated and accurately pitched even at these tempos, but the speed of execution does not deflect his attention from the unfolding shape of his solo. Their version of 'Falling In Love With Love' is taken at a more relaxed clip, and features a lovely melodic solo from Hank Jones, long the most unsung of the famous trio of Detroit siblings completed by his brothers Thad and Elvin. Like Tommy Flanagan, another Detroit native, Jones was equally at home in swing or bop settings, but both these great pianists only really made their mark as leaders later in their careers.

Dorham's next album for Riverside, cut on 13 November and 2 December, 1957, took a different tack. 2 Horns, 2 Rhythm dispensed with piano for a date which featured the ill-fated alto saxophonist Ernie Henry, with either Eddie Mathias (in the earlier session) or Wilbur Ware on bass, and G. T. Hogan on drums. Dorham had worked with Henry before, including the saxophonist's 1956 debut for Riverside, Presenting Ernie Henry, but this date was to be the saxophonist's last before his premature death on 29 December, 1957. He made only two other albums as a leader, Seven Standards and A Blues and the posthumously issued Last Chorus, both of which date from September, 1957. Henry also participated in the mammoth sessions for Monk's Brilliant Corners, although he often seemed out of his depth in that demanding music. His own records, and his contribution here, provide better evidence of his unfulfilled potential.

Dorham made good use of the spare instrumental textures. A piano less quartet was not a new innovation (Gerry Mulligan was enjoying great success with that format, and Dorham had been partly responsible for its adoption in Max Roach's group), but it was still fairly unusual, and posed special challenges to players used to a reassuring carpet of chords running beneath their work. The horn players revel in the extra space, with the trumpeter in excellent creative shape on five standards and three original compositions, including another 'Lotus Blossom' and an evocation of classical counterpoint in 'Jazz-Classic'. The standards included a very solemn version of Gershwin's 'Soon', with minimal piano interjections by Dorham, and an exhumation of 'Is It True What They Say About Dixie?', a selection which suggests some of Sonny Rollins's predilection for unlikely vehicles may have rubbed off on the trumpeter.

Although Dorham had doubled as a blues vocalist with Dizzy Gillespie's band, and claimed that he saw his singing as an integral aspect of his overall musical identity, he made only one record featuring his voice, and that at a time when Chet Baker was racking up big sales with his own combined efforts. His vocals are agreeable enough, but the lack of any sustained follow up makes the album, This Is The Moment, something of a curiosity in his output. It was recorded in July and August, 1958, for Riverside, and marked the recording debut of pianist Cedar Walton. …

Dorham taught at the jazz school organized by pianist John Lewis at Lenox, Massachusetts in 1958 and 1959. He contributed characteristically well focused trumpet playing to a famous but ultimately disappointing session featuring John Coltrane and pia­nist Cecil Taylor in October, 1958, although the disappointment stems largely from the very high expectations such a combination generates. It was originally Taylor's date, and appeared as Stereo Drive on United Artists, but was later reissued as Coltrane Time on Blue Note. Dorham's 'Shifting Down' and bassist Chuck Israels' 'Double Clutching' are more interesting than the two standards, neither of which quite catches fire.

His final Riverside date, Blue Spring, was recorded on 20 January and 18 February, 1959, and combined four of his own compositions on that theme ('Blue Spring', 'Poetic Spring', 'Spring Is Here', and 'Spring Cannon') with two tunes by Richard Rodgers, 'It Might As Well Be Spring' and 'Passion Spring'. In a reversal of the sparse textures he had chosen for his previous album, Dorham assembled a septet, with Cannonball Adderley on alto saxophone alongside Cecil Payne on baritone and the more unusual timbre of David Amram's French horn, and a rhythm section of Cedar Walton on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and either Jimmy Cobb or Philly Joe Jones on drums. Dorham's solos are characteristically purposeful and inventive, while his deftly handled arrangements make expressive use of the contrasting sonority of the alto with the darker shadings of baritone and horn in another strong, thoughtful album.

Dorham's style was well set by the end of the decade, and he had developed a more refined approach to tone and sonority. He was soon recording again, this time for Prestige's New Jazz imprint. Quiet Kenny, recorded on 13 November, 1959, with a rhythm trio of Tommy Flanagan on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and drummer Art Taylor, is one of his most consistently achieved records. Despite the title, this is not primarily a ballad album, although it contains beautiful interpretations of 'My Ideal' and 'Old Folks', as well as another 'Lotus Blossom'. Rather, the title implies a measured deliberation. It was the first time he had recorded without another horn, and while he relished the freedom of that context, his statements are made sotto voce, and impress with their discipline, authority and sheer musicality rather than any more brash means of point-scoring. Flanagan is a perfect foil, and the whole disc is a polished gem.

Flanagan was present again on 10 January, 1960, with Charles Davis on baritone saxophone, Butch Warren on bass and Buddy Enlow on drums. The results have been issued under contrasting titles as Kenny Dorham Memorial Album on Zanadu and The Arrival of Kenny Dorham on Fresh Sounds. It included Tm An Old Cowhand', a tune forever associated with Sonny Rollins, and an elegant 'Stella By Starlight'. Davis's baritone was also promi­nently featured on a session on 11 February, 1960, released as Jazz Contemporary on the Time label, which included versions of 'Monk's Mood' and Dave Brubeck's ‘ln Your Own Sweet Way', as well as Dorham's 'Horn Salute'. Showboat, recorded for Time on 9 December, 1960, featured a quintet with Jimmy Heath on tenor saxophone and pianist Kenny Drew, and was devoted entirely to the music of Oscar Hammerstein. In between, he had taken part in the alternative Newport Rebels festival arranged by Charles Mingus and Max Roach as a protest against the commercialization of the Newport Jazz Festival, which ended in chaos that year.

Dorham rejoined the Blue Note stable, and cut Whistle Stop on 15 January, 1961. Although it would have been difficult to guess at the time, and impossible to deduce from the powerful trumpet playing and strong compositions on this excellent and still rather undervalued album, Dorham's career was now in its final phase. He would do little of any real significance after 1964, and some of the music which he did make in this three year period shows occasional signs of strain. Conversely, much of it is amongst the strongest work of his career, both on his own albums and as a sideman with two of the newer generation, saxophonist Joe Henderson and pianist Andrew Hill.

Whistle Stop reunited the trumpeter with an old front line partner, saxophonist Hank Mobley, as well as his favored rhythm twins, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones. Pianist Kenny Drew completed the quintet which laid down one of his most overtly straight-ahead sessions, led by the energized title track, and dipping into the familiar well-springs of the blues on 'Philly Twist' and funk on 'Buffalo', as well as more recent modal directions in 'Sunset'. 'Sunrise In Mexico' and 'Windmill' aimed at colorful musical evocations of their subjects, and swung furiously into the bargain. The album closed with 'Dorham's Epitaph', a brief melancholy theme which, according to Ira Gitler's sleeve note, the trumpeter had apparently worked up into a large scale orchestral piece, which to my knowledge has never been performed.

The inspiration behind Matador, made for Richard Bock's Pacific Jazz, was a tour of South America with Monte Kay's First American Jazz Festival in June, 1961. His response to Brazil and its music was swift and immediate. He was drawn to its emotional power (he described the tour as 'an exciting, wild, new, unforgettable experience' and the music as shattering), but also to its structural variety and time signatures. The album, and in particular his own 'El Matador', is a vivid response to the experience, and includes his arrangement of the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos's 'Prelude'.

Matador was later combined on CD with his other Pacific Jazz release, the live set Inta Somethin,’ recorded at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco in November, 1961, which included the title track of Dorham's next Blue Note disc, 'Una Mas'. Matador was recorded in New York on 15 April, 1962, and also featured an intense version of Jackie McLean's 'Melanie'. The saxophonist played alto on both sessions, with two entirely different rhythm sections, and has remained a prominent booster of the trumpeter's reputation. Dorham also recorded several sessions as a sideman in 1961, two of which were later reissued by Black Lion under his name as West 42nd Street and Osmosis, although they were really led by saxophonist Rocky Boyd and drummer Dave Bailey respectively.

His most significant musical relationship of the period was the one which developed with the up and coming young saxophonist Joe Henderson, newly signed to Blue Note in 1963. It spanned six albums in 1963-64, all for Blue Note: Dorham's Una Mas and Trompeta Toccata, Henderson's Page One (which featured the first recording of 'Blue Bossa'), Our Thing and In ‘n Out, and Andrew Hill's Point of Departure, a key record of the era. Both Henderson and Hill will be dealt with in the next book in this sequence, and space does not permit a detailed consideration of these albums here, but they are essential to a full picture of the trumpeter's music in the last decade of his career. He was clearly well aware of the new currents flowing through jazz, and adapts comfortably within the more progressive frameworks generated by musicians like Hill and Eric Dolphy on Point of Departure, and McCoy Tyner, Pete LaRoca and Elvin Jones on the Henderson albums.

The session for Una Mas on 1 April, 1963 was Joe Henderson's first ever record date. Dorham had taken the saxophonist under his wing,and Henderson remained a staunch admirer when I spoke to him about his big band album in 1996, a project which had its roots in a rehearsal band he co-led with Dorham three decades earlier. Henderson acknowledged the trumpeter's role in his own development, placing him alongside Horace Silver and Miles Davis in that regard, and added that Kenny was one of the most important creators around, and yet you hardly ever hear his name anymore'. The quintet also featured Herbie Hancock on piano, Butch Warren on bass, and drummer Tony Williams, in a solid session which contained three original tunes by Dorham, the Brazilian influenced 'Una Mas' and 'Sao Paulo' and the more boppish 'Straight Ahead', as well as a tender evocation of Lerner-Loewe's 'If Ever I Would Leave You'.

Short Story and Scandia Skies, made in Copenhagen for Steeple­chase in December, 1963, are less impressive, although the label gathered an interesting group of musicians for the dates, including the mercurial Catalan pianist Tete Montoliu and bassist Niels-Henning 0rsted Pedersen, as well as a second trumpet or flugelhorn (Allan Botschinsky on Short Story, Rolf Ericson on Scandia Skies) rather than saxophone. Dorham's playing often sounds routine, both in technical terms and degree of emotional commitment.

His final date for Blue Note, Trompeta Toccata, was made nine months later, on 4 September, 1964, with Henderson on tenor, Tommy Flanagan on piano, Richard Davis on bass, and Albert 'Tootie' Heath on drums. The long title track moves away from standard song form entirely, using a rubato introduction followed by a 20-bar structure in flowing 6/8 time, which the players treat freely in terms of phrase lengths. The music is also distant from hard bop, but reflects Dorham's interest in both classical and Latin music, as well as something of the new harmonic freedoms current in the jazz of the time, led by John Coltrane, whose approach is echoed in Henderson's solo. Both 'Night Watch' and 'The Fox' are framed in more conventional jazz structures, while Henderson supplied his infectious Latin groove tune 'Mamacita'. The album has some fine moments, but it is arguably the least compelling of his records for the label.

It is ironic that Leonard Feather's sleeve note concludes with Dorham saying that there is 'more and more I feel I can do. And these days, it strikes me that the sky's the limit.’ Despite that confident assertion, Trompeta Toccata was his last significant outing as a leader. Although he was only forty, the long anticipated major breakthrough had not arrived, and jazz fashions were set to change again as the decade progressed, leaving him swimming against the tide.

He co-led a rehearsal big band with Joe Henderson for a year or so from mid-1966, but his later work was mainly as a sideman, including dates with Cedar Walton and Detroit pianist Barry Harris for Prestige, and an intriguing session led by Cecil Payne in Decem­ber, 1968, issued as Zodiac: The Music of Cecil Payne on Strata East. Dorham's contributions to an excellent date dispel any notion that he was even remotely a spent force, and the prompting of a band which included pianist Wynton Kelly alongside Wilbur Ware on bass and Tootie Heath on drums drive the trumpeter to the most impressive playing on disc of his later years.

Dorham also did some reviewing for Down Beat, and, as he told Art Taylor in 1971, planned to concentrate his energies on education rather than performing. He died from kidney disease on 5 December, 1972, in New York. Art Blakey described him as the uncrowned king of modern jazz, and if not quite that, his best work is conclusive evidence of his right to be regarded as one of the finest players and composers of his era.”

Kenny Dorham by Gene Feehan

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

By 1962 when the following article was written, trumpeter Kenny Dorham had been an active jazz musician for more than two decades and one of the first trumpeters to fuse the innovations of bop into a personal style. In this interview with Gene Feehan, Kenny reflects on his long and varied career in jazz.

For much of his career, Dorham was somehow considered a “second-tiered” trumpeter when compared to the playing of Dizzy, Miles, Clifford Brown and other modern Jazz trumpet luminaries.

Kenny’s name is still rarely mentioned today which is surprising given the number of high profile groups that he performed with, the huge discography he was involved with both under his own name and with other significant Jazz musicians, and the fact that he created a style or sound on the trumpet that is as instantly recognizable as Diz’s, Miles’ or Brownie’s.

Rummaging around a loaned collection of Down Beat magazine's recently, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles found Gene’s piece about Kenny and thought thought it might serve to enhance the body of writings about Kenny that have appeared on the blog as a way of remembering him or, if you will, memorializing him.

“TRUMPETER Kenny Dorham is not mentioned in Barry Ulanov's History of Jazz in America. He is not pictured in the Orrin Keepnews-Bill Grauer Pictorial History of Jazz. No reference to him and his 23 years of participation in jazz appears in Marshall Stearns' Story of Jazz, although Bo Diddley, Reb Spikes, and Snake Hips Tucker find a niche in the listings.

In short, if one were to be introduced for the first time to the story of contemporary jazz trumpet, one might well surmise that the horn is played almost exclusively by Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis. Yet at least one important critic has emphatically stated, "Dorham has become a consummate and masterful trumpeter, one of the key voices in modern jazz."

Yet it would appear that the 38-year-old Dorham is still a relatively unknown quantity to many jazz fans, despite his clearly felt impact on today's music. "I've always gone my own way," he maintains stoutly. "I don't know how you can play jazz and not be yourself."

Dorham would not describe himself as a reticent man, but like anyone else with a long story to tell, he must find a keenly tuned and attentive ear. This may explain why his role in the bop movement is so little appreciated, except by musicians he's worked with and a few fans and critics.

"You know," he recalled, "my love of jazz was motivated as a little kid by my sister. She used to sing commercials for Coca-Cola and Dr. Pepper, and one day she came home when I was about 7 or 8 with some records by Louis Armstrong [he pronounced it Lou-iss]. When I was 15, in 1939, she bought me a trumpet. My father was already a guitarist, and my mother and sister could play piano real well. My sister encouraged me to learn the horn. I'd been fooling around with piano since I was 7, so I knew chords at least. So, when I took up the horn, I had a basic grounding in music."

When Dorham went into Anderson High School in Austin, Texas, he had three idols on the horn: Bix Beiderbecke, Roy Eldridge, and Bunny Berigan.

He said he liked Beiderbecke's overall musicianship, adding, "Bix sounded like a piano player, because he knew all the changes. However, Roy had more happening than anyone else. Others I dug were Harry Edison, Ziggy Elman, Buck Clayton, Basie's brass, and Erskine Hawkins' band."

He really got his start in 1939, he said, with the school's marching band. One of his friends in that band was Bo Rhambo, who played both trumpet and tenor saxophone, and when they weren't jamming together, Rhambo was busy writing arrangements for the group in a Count Basie or Glenn Miller vein.

Dorham tried the West Coast between October and December, 1943, and though it was a good way to break in, he was back in Houston with Illinois Jacquet's big band by early the next year. About that time he was playing a lot of growls and used mutes made of hats with the brims cut off for other effects. In July, 1944, he decided to try New York City, and one of the first places he checked into was Minton's.

"After I'd taken my first solo," he recalled, "Lockjaw Davis, the bandmaster, came over and said, 'You've got a standing invitation here, man.' From then on, it was like a dream, playing every night with guys I'd only heard about: Bud, Fats, Dexter, Serge, Wardell, Lips, and many others."

In the spring of 1945, Gillespie let out the word that he was holding auditions, and a houseful of guys turned out including Henry Boozier and Dorham, who'd been working as a team for some time. When it got down to Dorham, he said to Gillespie,

"I don't go unless Henry comes along, too. And that's how Diz got two trumpets for one chair."

After that, which was about October, 1946, he went with Billy Eckstine's big band, in its time, as Dorham recalled, "the best band in the country. It had a tremendous rhythm section: Art Blakey, Tommy Potter, and Richard Ellington on piano. It had excellent soloists, too, like Gene Ammons and Leo Parker. Those six months I was with Eckstine were a groove. Billy brought me in as trumpet soloist to replace Fats Navarro, who had replaced Diz. I was only 22, but already I was accepted on my merits. Billy was a great leader; he'd always let you go when you were having a great night."

Dorham's memories of Charlie Parker reflect Parker's diversity as a human being and an artist, in that they seem to have no particular line of development or follow any logical line of growth. But fragments, as an archeologist will testify, offer their own story:

"Bird knew a lot about the strangest things, like how a car's engine is put together and how it functions. . . . He never was a big one for rehearsals. In fact, in all the years I played with him, he called only one, and that was for a couple of new guys who'd just joined the band. . . . I had heard Bird long before I came to New York, and right from the start he was my favorite soloist. His speed especially influenced me, but even today I can't get anywhere near it. ...

"Bird never practiced that I know of, but he was always able to hit the bandstand like a ball of fire. It's funny, but he never got disturbed when the rest of the band couldn't keep up with him. . . . He always said something sweet about Diz. . . . He'd play themes from The Rite of Spring (just a quarter or a half-step off) on the 12th chorus or so. The musicians dug it, but I don't think the audience knew what was going on. . . .

"No one today plays as fast as he did. In fact, Max Roach developed his own speed by playing with Bird. Max would challenge him by laying down a real fast beat on an opening chorus and, by the second, Bird would be pulling away. . . . He believed in what I call 'bandstand mileage': that is, to put together on the bandstand things you might not have practiced at home — kind of a trial-and-error process. What he meant was — know how to reach the audience and still be able to play yourself at the very top of your ability."

On the next point Dorham was firmly insistent: "Today, Bird would be as much out in front as he ever was. You'd have to change the sax before anyone could play it like he did. . . . Actors, performers, and musicians, when they're up on a stage, know the principle of 'the fourth wall.' What it means is that you're aware of the audience and yet you have to preserve a sense of detachment so you can create a piece of music or a role internally. Bird knew that concept best of all. It's an idea that may seem incomprehensible to some performers, but it's absolutely necessary for peak performance. ... To develop that concept a bit further, Bird would become inspired by a person in the audience, and direct his playing accordingly, whether humorous or sarcastic or whatever. We called those things he did nursery rhymes. Once, back in the spring of 1949, at the Royal Roost, a real beat-looking chick yelled, ‘Pay My Wild Irish Rose.' Bird glanced at her and threw in an out-of-key phrase from The Lady Is a Tramp. We all broke up."

MEMORIES OF Parker are not Dorham's sole stock in trade. He has a wealth of observations on other aspects of today's music, from jazz in movies to advice to young musicians.

"Movies are starting to offer opportunities to jazzmen to play and write, and, of course, so does TV," he said. "I collaborated with Duke Jordan, Kenny Clarke, and Barney Wilen on the score of the French film, Witness in the City, as far back as 1959. I actually got on screen in the current Les Liaisons Dangereuses."

Some years ago, a critic observed that the trumpet had taken a subsidiary position to the saxophone in modern jazz and cited the Chet Baker-Gerry Mulligan and Miles-Bird playing relationships as major evidence. Dorham doesn't agree with the theory and maintains that the trumpet is secondary only in terms of the playing ability of any given musician compared with another in his group.

"For another thing," he said, "the trumpet has only three valves, while the sax has at least seven times more keys or, as I call them, referent points. Also, you've got to remember that the trumpet has been explored more; it's a much more antiquated instrument, you might say."

Dorham, something of a singer, too, though his singing is not equal to his playing, had a few things to say on that subject as well:

"Singing has always been important to me. I still study to keep my pipes open. My band experience included some nine months of vocal work with Diz in 1945, until Dexter Armstrong came in on my reference. My major influence was Charles Brown, who, in turn, has had an impact on Ray Charles — a lot of impact! When you come from the Southwest, as I did, you develop a kind of echo, which is evident both in your horn and your voice."

In the area of composing, Dorham has been working steadily over the years. More than a year ago, he composed and arranged a 25-minute work that he submitted to (and hopes will be performed by) the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. He wrote the first two parts, Fairy Tale, a 10-minute ballad, and Lotus Blossom, an Oriental melody, and has been trying to get trombonist J. J. Johnson to do the final section.

Working conditions for jazzmen are a controversial topic, but Dorham doesn't take as dim a view as some others.

"Since I came to New York," he said, "I'd say the general quality of conditions has improved. The appeal of a leader's name is very important, which is why I worked as often as I could with Bird, Max, and the big bands. . . .

"But in today's music world, I'm just as likely to end up talking about my work before the UN Jazz Society — that's how much the business has changed. You'll generally find that where guys are making real money today they're only playing background. I've discovered that everybody's looking at me for a bargain, but I'm still optimistic."

"One last key point: club owners should know how, when, and where to showcase new talent. On the average, a band hits a club three times a year. It plays the same repertoire, and this becomes tiresome to the listener. If the band and its writers can't come up with some new charts, the public is being cheated, I think. And that means that, sooner or later, the club owner is going to lose his audience.

Dorham is aware of "the kiddies," as Jo Jones so often refers to young musicians, and their problems: "I don't care whether you want to learn trombone, tympani, or tuba, my best advice is to start off by studying piano. I did it, and it helped me enormously. It's the yardstick in music because of its voicings, its blends of sounds and, over-all, because it expresses more than any other instrument. . . . It leads you to a better theoretical foundation, and it gives you a chance to play more than one note at a time. Then you can move on to develop your playing of the instrument of your choice.

"The future of jazz may well come from such establishments and experiments as the Lenox, Mass., School of Music [now inactive], the Berklee School in Boston, and the North Texas State University bands and groups. A student is able to acquire this formal type of education in music rather than to have to hunt for it, hit or miss. He can concentrate his energies into a relatively small span of time, thus getting the greatest benefit out of it.”                            

Source

Down Beat

September 27, 1962

Afro Cuban - Kenny Dorham

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Here’s another of our features based around favorite recordings, this time focusing on trumpeter Kenny Dorham’s Afro Cuban album for Blue Note which has been reissued on CD as CDP 7 46815 2.

Leonard Feather, the distinguished Jazz critic, producer and author of The Encyclopedia of Jazz, wrote the following insert notes Afro Cuban, Kenny’s first session for Blue Note as a leader

“THE contents of this LP provide a revealing dual portrait of Kenny Dorham. One side of him, the side with the Afro-Cuban leanings, can be observed in the first four tunes, featuring an eight-piece band, previously released on a 10" LP. The other side, both of Kenny and of the record, can be observed in the last three tunes, which were recorded with a quintet and have never previously been released.

It has taken McKinley Howard Dorham quite a few years to earn the recognition that should have been his during the middle 1940s. For a long time, during the halcyon era of the bop movement, Kenny was Mr, Available for every trumpet choir in every band and combo. If Dizzy wasn't around and Howard McGhee was out of town, there was always Kenny. And so it went from abou! 1945 to '51, always in the shadow of those who had been first to establish themselves in the vanguard of the new jazz.

Slowly, in the past few years, Kenny has emerged from behind this bop bushel to show the individual qualities (hot were ultimately to mark him for independent honors. Numerous chores as a sideman on record dates for various small companies led to his inclusion in the important Horace Silver Quintet dotes for Blue Note (BLP 1518), and, as a result of his fine work on these occasions, to the signing of a Blue Note contract and his first date for this label as a combo leader on his own.

If the Kenny Dorham Story were ever made into a movie (and the way things are going in Hollywood at the moment, don't let anything surprise you) it would begin on a ranch near Fairfield, Texas on August 30,1924. The actor playing Kenny as a child would be shown listening to his mother and sister playing the piano and his father strumming blues on the guitar.

Then there would be the high school scenes in Austin, Texas, with Kenny taking up piano and trumpet but spending much of his time on the school boxing team; and later the sojourn at Wiley College, where he played in the band with Wild Bill Davis as well as majoring in chemistry. In his spare time Kenny would be seen making his first stabs at composing and arranging.

After almost a year in the Army (during which his pugilistic prowess came to the fore on the Army boxing team) Kenny went back 1o Texas, joining Russell Jacquet's band in Houston late in 1943 and spending much of 1944 with the bond of Frank Humphries.

From 1945 to '48 Kenny was on the road with several big bands, including those of Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Eckstine, Lionel Hampton and Mercer Ellington in that order. Then he spent the best part of two years playing clubs as part of the Charlie Parker Quintet. Lurking on the edge of the limelight occupied by the immortal Bird, he began to lure a little individual attention as something more than the section man and occasional soloist he had been for so long. One of his important breaks was a trip to Paris with Bird in 1949 to take part in the Jazz Festival.

Settling permanently in New York, Kenny became a freelance musician whose services alongside such notabilities as Bud Powell, Sonny Stitt, Thelonious Monk and Mary Lou Williams gradually impressed his name and style on jazz audiences.

During 1954-5 Kenny worked most frequently around the east with a combo that constitutes the nucleus of the outfit heard on these sides - Hank Mobley, Horace Silver and Art Blakey.

Mobley is an Eastman, Georgia product, born there in 1930 but raised in New Jersey. Making his start with Paul Gayten in 1950, he rose to prominence with Max Roach's combos off and on from 1951 -53 and with Dizzy in '54.

Mobley as well as Silver and Blakey are of course familiar figures at Blue Note, abundantly represented in the catalogue through their sessions with the Jazz Messengers (1507,1508,1518). Horace and Art are also on such other sessions as the Horace Silver trio (1520) and A Night At Birdland (1521,1522).

Jay Jay Johnson, whose eminence was saluted on 1505 and 1506, was recently elected the "Greatest Ever" by a jury of 100 of his peers in the Encyclopedia Yearbook of Jazz "Musicians' Musicians" poll.

Cecil McKenzie Payne, a baritone sax man with a long and distinguished record in modern jazz circles, is a 34-year-old Brooklynite whose career as a bopper began right after his release from the Army in 1946 and took him through the U.S. and Europe with Dizzy Gillespie until '49, when he began freelancing in New York with Tadd Dameron, James Moody and Illinois Jacquet.

Carlos "Potato" Valdes, the conga drummer; come over from Cuba a couple of years ago. It was Gillespie who first told Kenny Dorham about him and "Little Benny" Harris who dug him up and brought him to Kenny's rehearsal. "He gassed them all," recalls Alfred Lion succinctly.

Completing the octet, Oscar Pettiford provides the indomitable boss sound that won him the Esquire Gold Award in 1944 and '45 and the Down Seat Critics' poll in 1953.

For the four tunes with the Afro-Cuban rhythm motif, Kenny says, "I tried to write everything so that the rhythm would be useful throughout and would never get in the way." As a consequence, the Cuban touch sounds as if it is a part of the whole, rather than something that has been superimposed on a jazz scene, as is sometimes the case.

Afrodisia is a title that has been used before, but this is a new composition. The theme and interpretation recall somewhat the Gillespie approach to material of this type. Like the patriot who is plus royaliste que le roi, Kenny and his cohorts achieve a more interesting and more Cuban atmosphere here than you will hear on many performances emanating direct from Havana. The "Potato" is really cooking on this one.

Lotus Flower, after Horace's attractive intro, shows how the Cuban percussion idea can be applied effectively to a slow, pretty melody. Jay Jay's solo, though short, has a melancholy quality that compliments the mood set by Kenny's delicately phrased work here.

Minor's Holiday didn't get that title only because of its minor key; it was also named for Minor Robinson, a trumpet player in New Haven. A mood-setting rising phrase characterizes the opening chorus, leading into a loosely swinging, pinpoint-toned trumpet solo that shows, like all his work on this date, the high degree of individuality Kenny has achieved. Mobley and Jay Jay also have superior solos.

The session ends with an original commissioned by Kenny from Gigi Gryce, the talented ex-Hampton reedman. Basheer's Dream has a minor mood of singular intensity sustained by Kenny, Hank and Jay Jay, with Valdes and Blakey allied as a potent percussion team and Horace, the Connecticut Cuban, contributing some discreet punctuations.

The reverse side features four of the principal protagonists from the Afro-Cuban dale — Dorham, Mobley, Payne and Blakey - with Percy Heath of Modern Jazz Quartet fame replacing Pettiford. The session opens with K. D.'s Motion, a medium-paced blues, partly in unison and portly voiced. After an eight-measure bridge, Kenny dives into four choruses of fluent ab libbing. The blues being at once the lowest and highest common denominator of oil true jazzmen, Kenny is greatly at ease here, the solo offering a first-rate sample of his ideation and continuity. Payne, Mobley and Silver also cook freely before the theme returns at the end of this effective five-minute exploration of the 12-bar tradition.

The Villa, another Dorham original like all the music on these sides, is a melodic theme that could make a good pop song, though at this fast tempo it serves as a fine framework for trumpet, tenor and baritone solos, with Horace comping enthusiastically like a coach urging his team on from the sidelines. Kenny and Art trade fours for 24 measures before the ensemble returns.

Venita's Dance is a rhythmic yet somehow reflective and wistful theme, taken at a medium pace. Kenny's solo, constructed mostly in downward phrases, maintains the mood established in the opening chorus, after which Mobley's virile, assertive tone and style are in evidence, followed by excellent samples of Payne and Silver.

Whichever side of Kenny Dorham intrigues you most, whether you dig him particularly as composer or trumpeter, Afro-Cuban specialist or mainstream jazzman, most of what you will hear on this disc will offer a high protein diet of musical satisfaction.”                                                                   

The CD’s producer Michael Cuscuna added this postscript about its two additional tracks:

“K.D’s Cob Ride was an unfitted composition that first came out in Japan in the early 80's in a boxed set anthology entitled The Other Side Of the 1500 Series. We titled it as such because Hank Mobley confirmed that it was a Kenny Dorham composition and was the sort of tune that he might write in the cab on the way to a record date. It has since come to light that Kenny had already titled this piece "Echo of Spring" The alternate take of "Minors Holiday" preceded the master take in recording order and was marked on the session logs as being equal to the master take.”

You can check out Afrodisia, the opening track of Afro Cuban, on the following video montage.