kenny dorham, because life is unfair

Ask any modern decent trumpet player whose playing he likes, and Kenny Dorham's name pops into the list. Kenny Dorham epitomized the Blue Note hard bop approach as surely as Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, and Woody Shaw did. He played on as many classic albums, and he wrote "Blue Bossa", which is surely one of Blue Note's greatest sixties hits.

His 1963 Blue Note album Una Mas became damn near a label template. It marked the first on-record appearance for both drummer Tony Williams and tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, as well as the first Blue Note date for Herbie Hancock, and they all played beautifully. The album opened with (shock!) "Una Mas", a proto-boogaloo that prefigured "The Sidewinder" and a huge chunk of what would open the lion's share (no pun intended) of Blue Note albums for the next few years, to say nothing of producer Alfred Lion taking note of Dorham's choices of sidemen. Also, Dorham's playing on other people's albums was stellar, and -- just as is the case with his bud Joe Henderson -- he fit well into a very wide range of dates. His playing with Art Blakey is fifties hard bop perfection. And his playing on Andrew Hill's belovedly avant garde Point Of Departure as thrilling as well, although his playing on Coltrane Time, which features him and John Coltrane in a quintet built around pianist Cecil Taylor doesn't work as comfortably.

But he never busted to the front of the line as did Lee Morgan or Woody Shaw. I never understood why he didn't.

This is the only footage I know of him. He's playing with Danish guys. Apparently, he was not considered important enough to film in the USA.

(The Danish are good about this, especially with trumpet players. In 1933, they took the first real live concert footage of Louis Armstrong.)

So those of you who like jazz but don't get really extensive, don't feel bad. Musicians know Kenny, but most people don't unless they're diehards. The profane term "musician's musician" has been affixed to him, and that never does anyone any kind of good. Neither was his 1972 death by kidney failure the stuff of legends. But his playing was really fantastic, and I hope this leads a few of you to check out Una Mas, at least.