[Dixielandjazz] NYTimes obit-- Trumpeter Ted Curson

[Norman Vickers]

To:  Musicians and Jazzfans list; DJML

From: Norman Vickers, jazz Society of Pensacola

 

Here's the NYTimes obit on Ted Curson by Nate Chinen.  You will recall
previous note to Musicians and Jazzfans list that our Jazz Society of
Pensacola president Crystal Joy Albert related her acquaintance with Ted
when Crystal and husband lived in same apartment building in NYC during the
60s.

 

Here's NYTimes obit:

 




  _____  

November 8, 2012


Ted Curson, Trumpeter of the New and the Blue, Dies at 77


By NATE CHINEN
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/nate_chinen/in
dex.html> 


Ted Curson, a trumpeter who moved fluidly between soulful postbop and
volatile free jazz, both as a leader and as a sideman with Charles Mingus,
Cecil Taylor and Archie Shepp, died on Sunday in Montclair, N.J. He was 77. 

The cause was heart failure, his wife, Marge, said. 

Mr. Curson, who had a terse, muscular sound and a precise technique, was
part of a generation of jazz trumpeters who followed in the wake of Clifford
Brown, whose ease with the rigors of bebop he absorbed. 

But Mr. Curson also came of age at a time of seismic change in jazz, which
he felt firsthand through an affiliation with Mr. Taylor, the maverick
pianist. Mr. Curson and the saxophonist Bill Barron, a close collaborator,
formed the front line of Mr. Taylor's quintet on "Love for Sale," an oblique
but swinging <http://youtu.be/Vy0v6pHf3tM>  album released in 1959. 

Soon afterward Mr. Curson fell in with Mingus, a harrowingly demanding
bandleader intent on elasticizing the language of bebop. Mingus's working
band at the time, which also featured the alto saxophonist Eric Dolphy,
recorded both in the studio and in concert; its defining document is a 1960
live recording <http://youtu.be/6OCrWScxtmA> , "Mingus at Antibes," which
added the tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin and the pianist Bud Powell. 

Mr. Curson does some of his most celebrated work on that album, executing
tight, melodic pirouettes against the urgent delirium of "Better Git Hit in
Your Soul." 

He prized his rapport with Dolphy, a dynamic individualist whose ideas fell
just outside the jazz orthodoxy. Mr. Curson featured Dolphy on one of his
earliest albums. His best-known album, "Tears for Dolphy
<http://youtu.be/MxXkbgQWx3c> ," was made after the saxophonist's death at
36 in 1964. 

Theodore Curson was born on June 3, 1935, in Philadelphia. He studied at the
Granoff School of Music before moving to New York, where he quickly found
work. 

After leaving Mingus and forming a sturdy small group with Mr. Barron, he
recorded the 1965 Atlantic album "The New Thing & the Blue Thing," whose
title hints at his dual allegiance. Even as he was making hard-boppish music
with Mr. Barron and others, he was engaging with provocateurs like Mr.
Taylor and Mr. Shepp, the saxophonist whose 1965 Impulse album "Fire Music"
features Mr. Curson as the first soloist. 

The expressive clarity of Mr. Curson's sound also led to a job contributing
to the soundtrack of "Teorema," a 1968 Pier Paolo Pasolini film, though only
Ennio Morricone, who also contributed, received composer credit. 

In addition to his wife, Mr. Curson is survived by a son, Ted Jr.; a
daughter, Charlene Jackson; six grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter.   

Fame would largely elude Mr. Curson at home, but he found it in Finland,
where he was a fixture at the Pori Jazz Festival, one of the biggest and
oldest in Europe. Through a chance encounter with promoters in Paris, Mr.
Curson played the inaugural Pori festival in 1966 and never missed a year
<http://youtu.be/1JL14OVburg>  after that. He received a key to the city in
1998. 

But Mr. Curson also belonged to the greater New York area's jazz scene. In
1983 he established a late-night jam session at the Blue Note, which he ran
on and off for more than a decade. And for roughly the last 10 years he had
been leading a jam session one night a month at Trumpets Jazz Club in
Montclair <http://youtu.be/PKPPEBAfUXg> . He had been scheduled to appear
there on Wednesday. 

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 9, 2012

An earlier version of this obituary misstated the given name of a composer
who worked with Mr. Curson on the soundtrack of the 1968 film "Teorema." He
is Ennio Morricone, not Enrico.

 
--End--