Don Butterfield


Don Kiethly Butterfield was an American jazz and classical tuba player.

Biography

Butterfield began to play the tuba in high school. He wanted to play trumpet, but the band director assigned him to tuba instead. He joined the United States Army Air Forces and reached the rank of technician fifth grade. After serving in the U.S. Military from 1942 to 1946, he studied the instrument at the Juilliard School.
Butterfield started his professional career in the late 1940s playing for the CBS and NBC radio networks. He played in orchestras, including the American Symphony, on albums by Jackie Gleason until he became a full time member at the Radio City Music Hall.
In the 1950s, Butterfield switched to jazz, backing such musicians as Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Sinatra, Charles Mingus, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Jimmy Smith, and Moondog. He led his own sextet for a 1955 album on Atlantic Records and played at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival.
In the 1970s, he worked as a session musician. He played on recordings for a variety of artists and on television and film soundtracks, including The Godfather Part II.
The Grove Dictionary of Music calls Butterfield's playing style, "uncommonly florid, a skill that made him of value as a jazz musician... He was one of the first modern jazz players who, rather than simply marking out the bass line, rediscovered the possibility of bringing to the instrument a facility akin to that of a trumpeter."
Butterfield played an 8-foot-long trumpet on the May 21, 1962 episode of the I've Got a Secret television program.
Butterfield suffered a stroke in 2005, which left him unable to play, and he died in 2006 from a stroke-related illness.

Discography

As sideman

With Cannonball Adderley
  • African Waltz
  • Domination
With Nat Adderley
  • Autobiography
With David Amram
  • Subway Night
With Bob Brookmeyer
With Kenny Burrell
With Donald Byrd
With Teddy Charles
  • Word from Bird
With Jimmy Cleveland
  • Cleveland Style
  • A Map of Jimmy Cleveland
With Bill Evans
  • Symbiosis
With Art Farmer
  • Brass Shout
  • Baroque Sketches
With Maynard Ferguson
  • The Blues Roar
With Dizzy Gillespie
  • Gillespiana
  • Carnegie Hall Concert
With Urbie Green
  • All About Urbie Green and His Big Band
;With Coleman Hawkins
  • The Hawk in Hi Fi
With Jimmy Heath
  • Swamp Seed
With Roland Kirk
  • The Roland Kirk Quartet Meets the Benny Golson Orchestra
With John Lewis
  • Essence
With Arif Mardin
  • Journey
With Gil Mellé
  • 5 Impressions of Color
  • Gil's Guests
With Charles Mingus
With the Modern Jazz Quartet
  • Plastic Dreams
With James Moody
  • Moody with Strings
  • Moody and the Brass Figures
With Wes Montgomery
  • Movin' Wes
With Lee Morgan
  • Delightfulee
With Oliver Nelson
  • Impressions of Phaedra
  • The Kennedy Dream
With Oscar Peterson
  • Bursting Out with the All-Star Big Band!
With Sonny Rollins
With Lalo Schifrin
With Jimmy Smith
  • The Cat
  • Hoochie Coochie Man
With Billy Taylor
With Clark Terry
With The Thad Jones / Mel Lewis Orchestra
  • New Life
With Cal Tjader
With Stanley Turrentine
  • ''Nightwings''