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THE INSTRUMENTS, THE SOUNDS, THE PERFORMERS |
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record dates and night club gigs with small combos, starting around 1946.
Johnson, in his early alliances with Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell and the other bop originators, managed to play passages, both improvised and arranged, that most musicians, particularly those of an earlier era, would have branded as impossible. The rapid sequences of eighth notes that were called for in the new jazz produced, in Johnsons early solos, tours de force that many listeners swore must have been played on a valve trombone. That Winding was his musical soulmate in this vaulting of a major obstacle on the track for jazz trombonists was most clearly demonstrated when they teamed to form a unique combo, the first of its kind, with which they toured successfully for two years, in 1954-6.
Almost all the important trombonists to have achieved international recognition since Winding and Johnson are those who have clearly been influenced by the pattern they established. Among the most accomplished of the modern school are Eddie Bert, the amazing Jimmy Cleveland, Carl Fontana, Matthew Gee, Benny Powell, Frank Rehak, Frank Rosolino and Earl Swope. Not directly indebted to Johnson and Winding, though their styles show certain characteristics in common with the two bop pioneers, are the brilliant Benny Green, who might be called a modern Benny Morton; Urbie Green, who has absorbed a variety of influences and is one of the most versatile of modern trombonists; Lou McGarity, who perhaps bears to Teagarden the relationship of Green to Morton.
The old style tailgate trombone tradition, meanwhile, still lives in the performances of traditionalist jazz groups led by Wilbur De Paris, Turk Murphy, Conrad Janis and others, though in De Paris* case this was a style adopted when he happened to fall into a commercially successful format; he is a fluent soloist who has been heard playing far more involved roles in bands such as Duke Ellington's.
Throughout the history of the trombone in jazz a parallel role has been played by the valve trombone, which in tone and range differs little from the slide trombone. This instrument, in which the manipulation of the slide is replaced by the depressing of tho |
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