Jon Faddis
Encyclopedia
Jon Faddis is an American jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 trumpet player, conductor, composer, and educator renowned for both his highly virtuosic command of the instrument and for his expertise in the field of music education. Upon his first appearance on the scene, he became known for his ability to closely mirror the sound of trumpet icon Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...

, who was his mentor along with Stan Kenton
Stan Kenton
Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator....

 trumpeter Bill Catalano. His nephew is Madlib
Madlib
Otis Jackson Jr. in Oxnard, California, known professionally as Madlib, is a Los Angeles-based DJ, multi-instrumentalist, rapper, and music producer...

, acclaimed hip hop and jazz producer.

Biography

Jon Faddis was born in Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

 in 1953. At 18, he joined Lionel Hampton
Lionel Hampton
Lionel Leo Hampton was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, bandleader and actor. Like Red Norvo, he was one of the first jazz vibraphone players. Hampton ranks among the great names in jazz history, having worked with a who's who of jazz musicians, from Benny Goodman and Buddy...

's big band before joining the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra as lead trumpet. After playing with Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...

 in his early 20s, Faddis became a noted studio musician in New York, appearing on many pop recordings in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In the mid-eighties, he left the studios to continue to pursue his solo career, which resulted in albums like Legacy, Into The Faddisphere and Hornucopia. As a result of his growth as a musician and individual artist, he became the director and main trumpet soloist of the Dizzy Gillespie 70th Birthday Big Band and Dizzy's United Nation Orchestra; from 1992 to 2002, Faddis led the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

, conducting over 40 concerts in ten years, during which time the CHJB presented over 135 musicians, featured over 70 guest artists, and premiered works by over 35 composers and arrangers at Carnegie Hall.

Faddis also led the Dizzy Gillespie Alumni All-Stars and the Dizzy Gillespie Alumni All-Stars Big Band from their inception through 2004, when he was appointed artistic director of the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, based at Columbia College Chicago in Illinois. Faddis led The CJE from autumn 2004 though spring 2010, premiering significant new works, pioneering educational initiatives in Chicago public schools focusing on Louis Armstrong's music, and bringing The CJE into new venues (including presenting the first of the "Made in Chicago" Jazz series at the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park), while concurrently leading the Jon Faddis Jazz Orchestra of New York (the successor to the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band).

As of May 2010, Faddis leads the JFJONY, while continuing also to lead the Jon Faddis Quartet and the JFQ+2. The JFJONY headlined The Kennedy Center's New Year's Eve performance in December 2010 (available as a podcast on NPR's JazzSet); the JFJONY has also performed at at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, the Performing Arts Center in Westchester, New York, the Newport Jazz Festival
Newport Jazz Festival
The Newport Jazz Festival is a music festival held every summer in Newport, Rhode Island, USA. It was established in 1954 by socialite Elaine Lorillard, who, together with husband Louis Lorillard, financed the festival for many years. The couple hired jazz impresario George Wein to organize the...

 and other venues.

In 2006, the Jon Faddis Quartet released the CD Teranga (Koch Records, now E1), featuring guests including Clark Terry
Clark Terry
Clark Terry is an American swing and bop trumpeter, a pioneer of the fluegelhorn in jazz, educator, NEA Jazz Masters inductee, and recipient of the 2010 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award...

, Russell Malone
Russell Malone
Russell Malone is an essentially self-taught swing and bebop jazz guitarist. He began working with Jimmy Smith in 1988, and went on to work with Harry Connick, Jr. and Diana Krall throughout the 1990s...

, Gary Smulyan
Gary Smulyan
Gary Smulyan is a jazz musician who plays baritone saxophone. He studied at SUNY before working with Woody Herman...

, and Frank Wess
Frank Wess
Frank Wess is an American jazz musician, who has played saxophone and flute.-Biography:...

.

In 1999, Faddis released the Grammy-nominated Remembrances (Chesky Records) which was composed almost entirely of ballads and featured work from Argentinian composer/arranger Carlos Franzetti
Carlos Franzetti
Carlos Alberto Franzetti is a Latin Grammy Award-winning composer and arranger from Buenos Aires, Argentina.Franzetti started studying music at Buenos Aires' National Conservatory at the age of 6 and later began taking private piano lessons. He began studying music composition after moving to...

.

In 1997, Faddis composed the Jazz opera Lulu Noire, which was presented at Spoleto USA in Charleston, SC as well as the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia.

Faddis appeared in the 1998 movie, Blues Brothers 2000
Blues Brothers 2000
Blues Brothers 2000 is a 1998 American musical comedy film that is a sequel to the 1980 film The Blues Brothers. Directed by John Landis, the film featured Dan Aykroyd and John Goodman, with cameos by many musicians.-Plot:...

. In the film, he plays trumpet with The Louisiana Gator Boys. Faddis is a first call lead player in New York City and has an international reputation for his playing ability in the full range, particularly the highest registers, of the trumpet. His distinctive trumpet playing can be heard on themes including "Lil' Bill," "The Wiz," and "Bird," among others.

Alongside his playing career, Faddis is a noted educator for jazz and the trumpet as well as a performing artist/clinican for Schilke Trumpets, manufactured in Melrose Park, Illinois. Faddis performs on a Schilke S-42L trumpet in gold-plate with slight modifications of his own design; prior to that he played a gold-plated B6L with the beryllium bell. His mouthpieces are custom made by Scott Laskey, of Lombard, Illinois.

For over a decade, Jon Faddis has taught – and continues to teach – at The Conservatory of Music at Purchase College-SUNY, in Westchester, New York, where he is Director of Jazz Performance. Remaining true to the tradition of honoring mentors, he also leads master classes, clinics and workshops around the world; he often will bring promising students along to his gigs and allow the students to sit in, and also has produced a number of CDs for up-and-coming musicians.

As leader

  • 1974: Jon & Billy (Storyville Records
    Storyville Records
    Storyville Records is a large international record label based in Copenhagen, Denmark, specializing in jazz and blues music. Besides its original material, Storyville Records has licensed and reissued many vintage jazz recordings that previously appeared on such labels as Paramount Records,...

    ) with Billy Harper
    Billy Harper
    Billy Harper is a Jazz saxophonist, "one of a generation of Coltrane-influenced tenor saxophonists" with a distinctively stern, hard-as-nails sound on his instrument.-Biography:...

  • 1976: Youngblood
  • 1978: Good and Plenty
  • 1985: Legacy (Concord Jazz
    Concord Jazz
    Concord Jazz is a subsidiary of Concord Records, owned by Concord Music Group.-Dozens of albums:*Charlie Byrd*Ruby Braff*Dave McKenna*Marian McPartland*Rosemary Clooney*Scott Hamilton*Tito Puente*George Shearing*Gene Harris*Mel Tormé*Monty Alexander...

    )
  • 1989: Into the Faddisphere (Sony/Epic Records)
  • 1991: Hornucopia (Sony/Epic Records)
  • 1995: The Carnegie Hall Jazz Band (Blue Note
    Blue note
    In jazz and blues, a blue note is a note sung or played at a slightly lower pitch than that of the major scale for expressive purposes. Typically the alteration is a semitone or less, but this varies among performers and genres. Country blues, in particular, features wide variations from the...

    )
  • 1997: Swing Summit: Passing On The Torch
  • 1997: Eastwood After Hours: Live at Carnegie Hall (Malposo Records/Warner Bros. Records)
  • 1998: Remembrances (Chesky)
  • 2006: Teranga (Koch Records/E1)

As Music Director for The Dizzy Gillespie Alumni All-Stars and The Dizzy Gillespie Alumni All-Stars Big Band

  • Dizzy’s 80th Birthday Party (1997)
  • Dizzy’s World (1999)
  • Things to Come" (Telarc, 2000)

As a Special Guest or sideman

With Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...

  • Charles Mingus and Friends in Concert
    Charles Mingus and Friends in Concert
    Charles Mingus and Friends in Concert is a live album by jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus recorded at the Philharmonic hall of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 1972 and released on the Columbia label...

    (Columbia, 1972)

With Charles Tolliver
Charles Tolliver
Charles Tolliver is an American jazz trumpeter and composer. Tolliver was born in Jacksonville, Florida, where, as a child, he received his first trumpet as a gift from his grandmother. He attended Howard University in the early 1960s as a pharmacy student, when he decided to pursue music as a...

  • Impact (1972)

With Grant Green
Grant Green
Grant Green was a jazz guitarist and composer....

  • The Main Attraction
    The Main Attraction (Grant Green album)
    The Main Attraction is an album by American jazz guitarist Grant Green featuring performances recorded in 1976 and released on the Kudu label.-Reception:...

    (1976)
  • Easy
    Easy (Grant Green album)
    Easy is the final album by American jazz guitarist Grant Green featuring performances recorded in 1978, a few months before his death, and released on the Versatile label.-Reception:...

    (1978)

With Paul Simon
Paul Simon
Paul Frederic Simon is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.Simon is best known for his success, beginning in 1965, as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached number one on the US singles...

  • Graceland
    Graceland (album)
    Graceland was Paul Simon's highest charting album in the U.S. in over a decade, reaching #3 in the national Billboard charts, receiving a certification of 5× Platinum by the RIAA and eventually selling over 14 million copies, making it Simon's most commercially successful album...


With Michel Camilo
Michel Camilo
Michel Camilo is a pianist and composer from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He specializes in jazz, Latin and classical piano work...

  • One More Once
    One More Once
    - Track listing :#"One More Once" -7:18#"Why Not!" -7:07#"The Resolution" -5:11#"Suite Sandrine, Pt. 3" -19:50#"Dreamlight" -11:12#"Just Kiddin'" -3:25...


With Lalo Schifrin
Lalo Schifrin
Lalo Schifrin is an Argentine composer, pianist and conductor. He is best known for his film and TV scores, such as the "Theme from Mission: Impossible". He has received four Grammy Awards and six Oscar nominations...

  • Lalo Schifrin with WDR Big Band: Gillespiana (1996)
  • Latin Jazz Suite (1999)
  • Ins and Outs – Lalo Live at the Blue Note (2002)

With Steve Turre
Steve Turre
Steve Turre is a trombonist, recording artist, arranger, and educator. In 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002 and 2006 he won the Down Beat Reader's Poll for best trombonist....

  • The Rhythm Within

With Tatsuro Yamashita
Tatsuro Yamashita
is a Japanese singer-songwriter, and record producer. He has been known by his musical style deeply influenced from 1960s American pop and rock music....

  • Circus Town (1976)
  • Pocket Music (1986)

With Jerry Fielding
Jerry Fielding
Jerry Fielding was an American radio, record, film and television composer, conductor, and musical director.-Childhood and education:...

  • The Gauntlet (Warner Records, 1978)

External links

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