Bill Hardman


William Franklin Hardman Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter and flugelhornist who chiefly played hard bop. He was married to Roseline and they had a daughter Nadege.

Career

Hardman was born and grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and worked with local players including Bobby Few and Bob Cunningham; while in high school he appeared with Tadd Dameron, and after graduation he joined Tiny Bradshaw's band. Hardman's first recording was with Jackie McLean in 1956; he later played with Charles Mingus, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Horace Silver, and Lou Donaldson, and led a group with Junior Cook. Hardman also recorded as a leader: Saying Something on the Savoy label received critical acclaim in jazz circles, but was little known to the general public. He had three periods in as many decades with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers; Hardman's misfortune was not to be with the Messengers at the time of their popular Blue Note recordings. Blakey occasionally featured him playing several extended choruses unaccompanied.
He died in Paris, France, of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 57.

Playing style and legacy

A crackling hard bop player with blazing technique, crisp articulations, and a no-frills sound, Hardman later incorporated into his sound the fuller, more extroverted romantic passion of a Clifford Brown – a direction he would take increasingly throughout the late-1960s and 1970s. He figures by and large among the top ranks of hardbop titans of the time, although he never managed a commercial breakthrough like many of his colleagues such as Donald Byrd, Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan.

Discography

As leader

  • 1961Saying Something
  • 1978Home
  • 1980Focus
  • 1981Politely
  • 1989What's Up
With Brass Company
  • 1975''Colors''

    As sideman

With Art Blakey
  • Hard Bop
  • Drum Suite
  • Selections from Lerner and Loewe's...
  • A Night in Tunisia
  • Cu-Bop
  • Ritual: The Modern Jazz Messengers
  • A Midnight Session with the Jazz Messengers
  • Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers With Thelonious Monk
  • Hard Drive
  • Art Blakey Big Band
  • Jazz Messengers '70
  • Tough! – rec. 1957
  • Live! Vol. 1 – live rec. 1968
  • Backgammon
  • Originally – rec. 1956
With Lou Donaldson
  • Sunny Side Up – rec. 1960
  • Possum Head
  • Musty Rusty
  • Fried Buzzard – live rec. 1965
With Charles Earland
  • Infant Eyes
  • Pleasant Afternoon
With Curtis Fuller
  • Crankin
  • Smokin
With Jackie McLean
  • Jackie's Pal
  • McLean's Scene
  • Jackie McLean & Co.
With others