Webster Young - R.I.P.

[stevebop]

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) _ Jazz trumpeter Webster Young, who played with greats such as Miles Davis and John Coltrane in the 1950s, died Saturday of a brain tumor. He was 71.
Young's career got an early boost when Louis Armstrong took him as a student when he was 10 years old. As a teenager, Young jammed with Dizzy Gillespie, earning the nickname "Little Diz" in Washington D.C.-area clubs for a style that resembled Gillespie's.
Young broke into the modern jazz scene in New York City in the late 1950s, recording several albums. He returned to Washington D.C. in the 1970s to raise his family. He toured in Europe in the 1980s and performed regularly at jazz clubs until eight months before his death.
Young's career peaked in 1957, when he played coronet with John Coltrane for the album "Interplay for Two Trumpets and Two Tenors" for the Prestige record label.

Always Know,

Steve Schwartz

Jazz From Studio 4
Friday, 7p-12a
WGBH, 89.7FM, Boston
www.wgbh.org

PS: Webster also made some fine Prestige sessions with Jackie McLean and recorded an album under his own name for that label, For Lady, featuring Paul Quinichette and Mal Waldron

RIP Webster

Sorry to hear that.

BTW: Coronets are very difficult to play: they have no strings, no reeds, and no mouth pieces. Try banging on them an, at best, a few gems get knocked loose.

[Frank Kimbrough]

This is sad news - I had the opportunity to play with Webster a few times when I lived in DC in 1980 - 81, and just starting to get my feet wet. He was a real gentleman and a beautiful player.

D.C. Jazz Trumpeter Webster Young Dies at 71
By Adam Bernstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 18, 2003; Page B06

• Webster Young, 71, a jazz trumpeter who grew up in Washington and worked with John Coltrane and Jackie McLean before returning to the area to teach and perform, died Dec. 13 at a hospice in Vancouver, Wash. He had a brain tumor.
  
  According to his family, Mr. Young went to New York in the late 1950s on the advice of trumpeter Miles Davis, whom he knew. During his several years there, Mr. Young played dates with saxophonist Lester Young (no relation), pianist Bud Powell and others.
  
  He also led a small group on the "For Lady" album in 1957 honoring songs popularized by singer Billie Holiday. Critics noted that his hushed tone resembled Davis's and that he was well matched on the recording with saxophonist Paul Quinichette, guitarist Joe Puma, pianist Mal Waldron, drummer Ed Thigpen and bassist Earl May.
  
  That same year, he was featured on saxophonist McLean's albums "A Long Drink of the Blues" and "Makin' the Changes" and saxophonist Coltrane's "Interplay for 2 Trumpets and 2 Tenors."
  
  In 1961, he recorded two volumes of "Webster Young Plays the Miles Davis Song Book."
  
  He then began touring the country, performing on the West Coast with saxophonist Dexter Gordon and also with saxophonist Jerry Coker's big band. He was a musical director and arranger for Ike and Tina Turner for a few dates in Canada.
  
  Mr. Young resettled in the Washington area in the mid-1960s and played with McLean's quintet on the soundtrack for the play "The Day of Absence," performed by Robert Hooks's D.C. Black Repertory Company in the mid-1970s. He also performed on the soundtrack of the documentary "7th and T" (1987), about a once-thriving black musical district in Washington.
  
  In the 1980s, he toured Europe and the Netherlands with pianist Rein DeGraaff's trio.
  
  While playing countless dates in the Washington area, he taught music theory at what is now the University of the District of Columbia and at his home in the District. He also was musical director for a jazz workshop band at the D.C. Music Center, which focused on jazz repertory.
  
  Webster English Young was born in Columbia, S.C., and raised by his mother in Washington, where he attended Armstrong High School. His interest in music grew after he saw the all-black musical film "Cabin in the Sky" (1943). His mother, a domestic worker, saved to buy him a trumpet, which he had requested.
  
  Not long after, he met Louis Armstrong at the Howard Theatre and persuaded the legendary horn player to give him a quick lesson. He then had more formal classical training and played in D.C. marching bands.
  
  He frequented the theater to see jazz artists, and he so modeled his dress and playing style on trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie that he developed the nickname "Little Diz."
  
  After service in the Air Force in Japan during the Korean War, Mr. Young played on the "Chitlin' Circuit" of black entertainers with pianist Hampton Hawes and saxophonist Rick Henderson. He also worked briefly as musical director for Lloyd Price's rhythm and blues band and played with him at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem.
  
  He moved to Portland, Ore., in 2002.
  
  His marriage to Mary Marshall Young ended in divorce.
  
  Survivors include his wife of 38 years, Gretchen Isenhart Young of Portland; two children from his first marriage, John Wardell Young of Washington and Terry Ann Powell of Silver Spring; and a son from his second marriage, Dorian Young of Portland.