[Dixielandjazz] FW: [jazz-westcoast] Jimmy Knepper

[Charlie Hooks]

Subject: [jazz-westcoast] Jimmy Knepper

>From today's The Independent.

>> JIMMY KNEPPER A gentle and likeable man who seemed to slip in and out of
>> bands practically unnoticed, Jimmy Knepper was yet one of the most eloquent
>> and original of jazz trombonists. His career was irrevocably modified on 12
>> October 1962 by a punch in the mouth from the unpredictable and often violent
>> genius of jazz, bass player and composer Charlie Mingus. Mingus had been
>> preparing for weeks for a concert of his music at New York Town Hall. Knepper
>> had been copying scores and doing additional work on Mingus's writing. The
>> two men were in Mingus's apartment when Knepper refused to take on more work.

>> The punch that followed broke one of Knepper's teeth, ruined his embouchure
>> and resulted in the permanent loss of the top octave of his range on the
>> trombone. Mingus alleged that his mild and affable trombone player had called
>> him a nigger. The concert was a disaster, but Knepper wasn't there. He was at
>> the dentist having the stump of his tooth removed. He took out a civil action
>> against Mingus. By January 1963 Knepper was able to play again after a
>> fashion and was hired by Peggy Lee to back her at the Basin Street East in
>> New York. Knepper returned home from the job one morning at six. The postman
>> rang with a delivery that required his signature, and he answered the door in
>> his pajamas. As he signed two men appeared from his garden. They were
>> treasury agents who had  been tipped off by phone about the delivery. It
>> was a small packet that contained about five dollars' worth of heroin and
>> Knepper was taken to the agents' headquarters. Knepper was sure that Mingus
>> had set him up. Eventually the agents agreed with him and released him.
>> Mingus came to court on 6 February charged with assaulting Knepper. Some of
>> the bassist's friends testified that he would never hurt anyone. Mingus said
>> that Knepper had come to his apartment drunk and fallen over, injuring
>> himself. He said again that Knepper had called him a nigger. The black judge
>> glared at him and said 'That's got nothing to do with it.' Mingus was given a
>> suspended sentence. Knepper's trombone solos and ensemble playing had been a
>> vital part of Mingus's bands for five or six years until then. He was a vital
>> figure in much of the composer's best work, including the albums "The Clown",
>> "Tonight At Noon", "Mingus Oh Yeah", "Blues and Roots" "Mingus Ah Um" and the
>> unique "Tijuana Moods" suite of 1957. During this time he had also graced
>> bands of similar moment led by Gil Evans, with whom he recorded in 1960 his
>> unforgettable classic feature on "Where Flamingos Fly", surely one of the
>> most beautiful and moving performances ever recorded on the instrument.

>> Although his trombone playing was most intricate, full of flying triplets and
>> unusual intervals, Knepper always made it sound easy and he became the idol
>> of other trombonists during the Sixties and Seventies. Unlike some of the
>> brilliant technicians of today, Knepper kept a high emotional content in his
>> work and involved his international audiences, who responded
>> enthusiastically. This was the apex of Knepper's career. He first took up the
>> alto horn when he was six years old and in military school. He played in the
>> school's marching bands and when he left, because his mother wanted him to
>> play in marching bands and orchestrally, changed to the trombone. He finished
>> his music studies in Los Angeles, and joined the Freddie Slack band,
>> recording with Slack in 1947.  Bebop had arrived and the big band era was
>> coming to a close. The result was that Knepper's playing reflected the swing
>> style of trombonists Dickie Wells and Lawrence Brown and absorbed the
>> revolutionary alto sax style of Charlie Parker. His tone on the instrument
>> avoided the brassy and concentrated on a fleet dexterity to express his
>> original ideas. But his years as a soloist still lay ahead. In the late
>> Forties and early Fifties he followed the hectic sideman's path through the
>> tail end of the big bands, working for Gene Roland, Charlie Spivak, Charlie
>> Barnet and Woody Herman. He briefly formed a quintet with Dean Benedetti, a
>> saxophonist obsessed with the work of Charlie Parker. Knepper helped
>> Benedetti in his mission to record unofficially as many of Parker's solos as
>> he could - their efforts survive in a much-coveted seven CD set. Knepper
>> joined the Claude Thornhill band in 1956 for its tour of American bases in
>> Germany, France and North Africa.  In February 1957 he made the fateful move
>> to the Charlie Mingus group, where he replaced one of his friends, another
>> white trombone player of similar talents, Willie Dennis. "It's hard for a
>> jazz musician to live a rational life," said Knepper, "unless he has an
>> independent income or a busy maximum of work. When I was with Mingus, we
>> didn't work very much. Most of the jobs were either recordings or concerts,
>> and in all it only came to ten or 15 weeks a year." Although he had by then
>> left Mingus for Tony Scott's group, Knepper was delighted to be named "New
>> Star" on the trombone by Down Beat magazine in 1959 for his work with Mingus.

>> He was sure more work would follow as a result. "I didn't work for three
>> months, and I panicked. Then Gene Roland got me into the Stan Kenton band. We
>> made a cross-country tour. Kenton was one of the nicest leaders I ever worked
>> with. A real gentleman." Knepper had to leave the band because of his wife's
>> illness. "After I left the band immediately went into a New York studio and
>> recorded all the things that I had soloed on." Frequent returns to work with
>> Mingus in New York were peppered with trips abroad. He toured in Africa with
>> Herbie Mann in 1960 and was in the Benny Goodman band for the disastrous tour
>> of the Soviet Union in 1962. The members of the band got on well with the
>> Russians, but Goodman's behaviour towards his musicians made them vow never
>> to work for him again. Knepper worked as a member of the Gil Evans Orchestra
>> whenever he could between 1960 and 1967, interspersing his jazz work with
>> jobs in Broadway pit bands - he was in the band for "Funny Girl" on Broadway
>> between 1964 and 1966. This left him time to deputise on Monday nights for
>> the trombonist Tom Mackintosh in the rehearsal band that played on Monday
>> nights at the Village Vanguard. This eventually emerged as the Thad Jones-Mel
>> Lewis Jazz Orchestra, and Knepper became a cornerstone of it from 1968 to
>> 1974. By now much in demand, he worked and recorded with the National Jazz
>> Ensemble, and, in Japan, with the Akiyoshi-Tabackin Band, He wrote scores for
>> and played in the Lee Konitz Nonet from 1975 to 1981 and even braced himself
>> to return to work for Mingus in 1977. When Mingus died in 1979 Knepper became
>> a key player in Mingus Dynasty, a band dedicated to playing the composer's
>> music. He travelled to Europe to work and record with George Gruntz's Concert
>> Band between 1976 and 1982 and made a successful trip to Britain to play with
>> a group including saxophonist Bobby Wellins and bassist Dave Green for three
>> weeks in 1980. From the late 1980s until the early 1990s he played with the
>> American Jazz Orchestra, recording with it with Benny Carter in 1987. He
>> split his time in New York between that group and two big bands led by Buck
>> Clayton and Loren Schonberg, but by now frequently returned to Europe to
>> work. Health problems made him cut down his playing during the Nineties and
>> Parkinson's Disease ended his career. Steve Voce James "Jimmy" Minter
>> Knepper, trombonist: born Los Angeles, 22 November 1927; married (one son
>> deceased, one daughter); died Triadelphia, West Virginia 15 June 2003.
>> 
>> 
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