Charles Greenlee (musician)
Charles " Majeed " Greenlee ( Islamic name Harnifan Majid, born May 24, 1927 in Detroit, Michigan, † January 23, 1993 in Springfield, Massachusetts ) was an American jazz trombonist ( and euphonium) and composer.
Life and work
Charles Greenlee played as a child in an American Legion Drum and Bugle Ensemble and studied Mellophon, drums and baritone horn. He began his career in the local music scene in Detroit, worked in the 1940s with various bandleaders like Floyd Ray, Lucky Millinder and Benny Carter during the second half of the decade with Dizzy Gillespie. During this time he led his own groups, in which, inter alia, played Frank Foster, Billy Mitchell and Tommy Flanagan. He converted to Islam and took the name from time to time Harneefan Majeed on, but without using the name on record releases.
1948 Greenlee worked at Lucky Thompson, 1949 again in the Gillespie 's big band in 1950 with Gene Ammons. From 1951 to 1957 Greenlee was not in the music scene is active, then played with Yusef Lateef and 1959 Maynard Ferguson; In the early 1960s he was active in the area of free jazz. During this time he participated in recordings of Charles Mingus (Pre -Bird, 1960 ), John Coltrane ( Africa / Brass, 1961) and Rahsaan Roland Kirk ( Reeds & Deeds, 1963) with. In the early 1970s he worked with Archie Shepp, with whom he performed in 1975 at the Montreux Jazz Festival. In 1974 he worked with ' big band album with Sam Rivers Crystals.
Under his own name Greenlee published on the Japanese label Baystate 1977, the album I Know About the Life, participated in the inter alia, Buster Williams, Beaver Harris, Charlie Persip, Archie Shepp and Charles Sullivan. He wrote the title of Miss Toni, played by Archie Shepp and Eric Dolphy ( Outward Bound ), as well as the three -part suite Zaid. He taught at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Disco Graphical Notes
- Archie Shepp - There's a Trumpet in My Soul (1975 )
- Archie Shepp - Jazz A Confronto 27 ( Horo Records, 1976)
- Archie Shepp - Attica Blues Big Band Live at the Palais Des Glaces ( Blue Marge, 1993)