Donald Byrd


Donaldson Toussaint L'Ouverture Byrd II was an American jazz and rhythm & blues trumpeter, composer and vocalist. A sideman for many other jazz musicians of his generation, Byrd was one of the few hard bop musicians who successfully explored funk and soul while remaining a jazz artist. As a bandleader, Byrd was an influence on the early career of Herbie Hancock and many others.

Biography

Early life and career

Byrd was born in 1932 in Detroit, Michigan. His family came from the African-American middle-class. His father, Elijah Thomas Byrd, was a Methodist minister who greatly valued education and oversaw his son's schooling. His mother, Cornelia Taylor, introduced Byrd to jazz music and it was her brother who gave Byrd his first trumpet. He attended Cass Technical High School. He performed with Lionel Hampton before finishing high school. During this period, his first professional recording session was in 1949 at Fortune Records in Detroit with the Robert Barnes Sextette for the single "Black Eyed Peas" / "Bobbin' At Barbee's." After playing in a military band during a term in the United States Air Force, Byrd obtained a bachelor's degree in music from Wayne State University and a master's degree from Manhattan School of Music. While still at the Manhattan School, he joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers as Clifford Brown's successor. In 1955, he recorded with Gigi Gryce, Jackie McLean and Mal Waldron. After leaving the Jazz Messengers in 1956, he performed with many leading jazz musicians of the day, including John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, and later Herbie Hancock.
Byrd's first regular group was a quintet that he co-led from 1958 to 1961 with baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams. The ensemble's hard-driving performances are captured live on At the Half Note Cafe. Byrd's 1961 LP Royal Flush was Hancock's Blue Note debut. Hancock has credited Byrd as a key influence in his early career, recounting that Byrd took the young pianist "under his wing" when he was a struggling musician newly arrived in New York, even letting him sleep on a hide-a-bed in his Bronx apartment for several years.
Hancock also recalled that Byrd helped him in many other ways: he encouraged Hancock to make his debut album for Blue Note, connected him with Mongo Santamaria, who turned Hancock's tune "Watermelon Man" into a chart-topping hit, and that Byrd also later urged him to accept Miles Davis' offer to join his quintet.
Hancock also credits Byrd with giving him one of the most important pieces of advice of his career – not to give away his publishing rights. When Blue Note offered Hancock the chance to record his first solo LP, label executives tried to convince him to relinquish his publishing in exchange for being able to record the album, but he stuck to Byrd's advice and refused, so the meeting came to an impasse. At this point, he stood up to leave and when it became clear that he was about to walk out, the executives relented and allowed him to retain his publishing. Thanks to Santamaria's subsequent hit cover version of "Watermelon Man", Hancock was soon receiving substantial royalties, and he used his first royalty check of $6,000 to buy his first car, a 1963 Shelby Cobra which Hancock still owns, and which is now the oldest production Cobra still in its original owner's hands.
In June 1964, Byrd played with Eric Dolphy in Paris only two weeks before Dolphy died from insulin shock.

Electric Byrd

By 1969's Fancy Free, Byrd was moving away from the hard bop jazz idiom and began to record jazz fusion and jazz-funk. He teamed up with the Mizell Brothers for Black Byrd which was, for many years, Blue Note's best-selling album. The title track climbed to No. 19 on Billboard R&B chart and reached the Hot 100 pop chart, peaking at No. 88. The Mizell brothers' follow-up albums for Byrd, Street Lady, Places and Spaces and Stepping into Tomorrow, were also big sellers, and have subsequently provided a rich source of samples for acid jazz artists such as Us3. Most of the material for the albums was written by Larry Mizell.
In 1973, he helped to establish and co-produce the Blackbyrds, a fusion group consisting of then-student musicians from Howard University, where Byrd taught in the music department and earned his J.D. in 1976. They scored several major hits including "Happy Music", "Walking in Rhythm" and "Rock Creek Park".
During his tenure at North Carolina Central University during the 1980s, he formed a group which included students from the college called the "125th St NYC Band". They recorded three albums; Love Byrd and Words, Sounds, Colors and Shapes which featured Isaac Hayes. "Love Has Come Around" on Love Byrd became a disco hit, reaching number No. 4 on Billboard's U.S. Dance Club Songs and in the UK and reached No. 41 on the charts.
Beginning in the 1960s, Byrd taught at a variety of postsecondary institutions, including Rutgers University, the Hampton Institute, New York University, Howard University, Queens College, Oberlin College, Cornell University, North Carolina Central University and Delaware State University. Byrd returned to somewhat straight-ahead jazz later in his career, recording three albums for Orrin Keepnews' Landmark Records. Byrd was named a NEA Jazz Master in 2000.
Byrd was a resident of Teaneck, New Jersey. He died on February 4, 2013, in Dover, Delaware, at age 80.

Discography

As leader/co-leader

As sideman

With Art Blakey
With Kenny Burrell
  • 1956: All Night Long
  • 1957: All Day Long
  • 1957: 2 Guitars
With Paul Chambers
  • 1956: Whims of Chambers
  • 1957: Paul Chambers Quintet
With Sonny Clark
  • 1957: Sonny's Crib
  • 1957-59: My Conception
With Kenny Clarke
  • Bohemia After Dark
  • Klook's Clique
With John Coltrane
  • 1957-58: Lush Life
  • 1957-58: The Believer
  • 1957-58: The Last Trane
  • 1958: Black Pearls
With Eric Dolphy
  • 1960-64: Naima
  • 1964: Unrealized Tapes
With Lou Donaldson
  • 1957: Wailing With Lou
  • 1957: Lou Takes Off
With Red Garland
  • 1957: All Mornin' Long
  • 1957: Soul Junction
  • 1957: High Pressure
With Dexter Gordon
  • 1964 One Flight Up
  • 1965: Ladybird
With Guru
  • 1992-93: Jazzmatazz, Vol. 1
  • 1994-95: Guru's Jazzmatazz, Vol. 2: The New Reality
With Hank Jones
  • 1955: Quartet-Quintet
  • 1955: Bluebird
With Hank Mobley
  • 1956: The Jazz Message of Hank Mobley
  • 1956: Mobley's Message
  • 1956: Jazz Message No. 2
  • 1956: Hank Mobley Sextet
  • 1957: Hank
  • 1963: No Room for Squares
  • 1963-65: The Turnaround!
  • 1963-66: Straight No Filter
  • 1967: Far Away Lands
With Jackie McLean
  • 1955: Presenting... Jackie McLean
  • 1956: Lights Out!
  • 1956: 4, 5 and 6
  • 1959: New Soil
  • 1959: Jackie's Bag
  • 1963: Vertigo
With Duke Pearson
  • 1962: Hush!
  • 1964: Wahoo!
With Oscar Pettiford
  • 1955: Another One
  • 1957: Winner's Circle
With Sonny Rollins
  • Sonny Rollins, Volume 1 – rec. 1956
  • Don't Stop the Carnival – live
With Horace Silver
  • 1956: Silver's Blue
  • 1956: 6 Pieces of Silver
With Jimmy Smith
With George Wallington
  • 1955: George Wallington Quintet at The Bohemia – live
  • 1956: Jazz for the Carriage Trade
  • 1957: The New York Scene
  • 1957: Jazz at Hotchkiss
With others