Tadd Dameron

Tadd Dameron

Portrait of Tadd Dameron, New York, between 1946 and 1948
Background information
Birth name Tadley Ewing Peake Dameron
Born (1917-02-21)February 21, 1917
Cleveland, Ohio, US
Died March 8, 1965(1965-03-08) (aged 48)
Genres Jazz
Occupation(s) Composer
Arranger
Musician
Instruments Piano

Tadley Ewing Peake "Tadd" Dameron (February 21, 1917 – March 8, 1965) was an American jazz composer, arranger and pianist. Saxophonist Dexter Gordon called him the "romanticist" of the bop movement,[1] while reviewer Scott Yanow wrote that Dameron was the "definitive arranger/composer of the bop era".[2]

Biography

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Dameron was the most influential arranger of the bebop era, but also wrote charts for swing and hard bop players. The bands he arranged for included those of Count Basie, Artie Shaw, Jimmie Lunceford, Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Eckstine, and Sarah Vaughan. He and lyricist Carl Sigman wrote "If You Could See Me Now" for Sarah Vaughan and it became one of her first signature songs. According to the composer, his greatest influences were George Gershwin and Duke Ellington.[3]

In the late 1940s, Dameron wrote arrangements for Gillespie's big band, who gave the première of his large-scale orchestral piece Soulphony in Three Hearts at Carnegie Hall in 1948. Also in 1948, Dameron led his own group in New York, which included Fats Navarro; the following year Dameron was at the Paris Jazz Festival with Miles Davis. From 1961 he scored for recordings by Milt Jackson, Sonny Stitt, and Blue Mitchell.[4]

Dameron also arranged and played for rhythm and blues musician Bull Moose Jackson. Playing for Jackson at that same time was Benny Golson, who was to become a jazz composer in his own right. Golson has said that Dameron was the most important influence on his writing.

Dameron composed several bop standards, including "Hot House", "If You Could See Me Now", "Our Delight", "Good Bait" (composed for Count Basie),[3] and "Lady Bird". Dameron's bands featured leading players such as Fats Navarro, Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, and Wardell Gray.

After forming another group of his own with Clifford Brown in 1953, Dameron developed an addiction to narcotics toward the end of his career. He served time (1959–61) in federal prison in Lexington, Kentucky. Dameron suffered from cancer and had several heart attacks before dying of cancer in 1965, at the age of 48.

Legacy

Dameron has been the subject of many tributes since his death:

Discography

Tadd Dameron, Mary Lou Williams, and Dizzy Gillespie in Williams's apartment, c. June 1946

As leader or co-leader

As arranger or conductor

With Milt Jackson

With Sonny Stitt

References

  1. ↑ Nisenson, Eric (1996). 'Round About Midnight: A Portrait of Miles Davis. Da Capo Press. p. 65. ISBN 0-306-80684-3.
  2. ↑ Yanow, Scott (2008), "Tadd Dameron biography", AllMusic.
  3. 1 2 Rosenthal, David, H. Hard Bop: Jazz and Black Music 1955-1965. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505869-0.
  4. ↑ Harrison, Max. "Dameron, Tadd." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. April 2, 2011.
  5. ↑ Carr, Ian; Fairweather, Digby and Priestley, Brian, Rough Guide to Jazz, Rough Guides, 2004. ISBN 1-84353-256-5, ISBN 978-1-84353-256-9.

Further reading

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