Don Weller (musician)
Don Weller ( born December 19, 1940 in London ) is a British jazz musician (tenor saxophone, composition).
Life and work
Weller had from the age of fourteen, several years clarinet lessons and has already led with 15 years in Croydon as a soloist in Mozart's Clarinet Concerto. Then he played in local Dixieland band. He later moved under the influence of John Coltrane on tenor saxophone and played in the sample band by Kathy Stobart. In the 1970s he led the jazz-rock group "Major Surgery", which played exclusively his compositions. Then he teamed up with drummer Bryan Spring, a quartet that also toured successfully in the 1980s and recorded with trumpeter Hannibal Marvin Peterson. In addition, he played regularly with Stan Tracey, Harry Beckett and the Quintet with Art subjects and also worked for Tucky Buzzard, Alan Price, Tina May, Alex Harvey, East of Eden, Count Basie and Jimmy Witherspoon.
In 1980, he appeared in place of Michael Brecker in the Gil Evans Orchestra during a tour of the United Kingdom. Also in 1983, he was part of the Gil Evans Orchestra.
Together with his friend and colleague Dick Morrissey was a member of the band Rocket 88, which was first then led by Bob Hall and Ian Stewart during the early 1980s; also in the company resulting from this band big band of Charlie Watts he played (Album 1986). Both as a composer and as a performer he was at the movies Absolute Beginners - Young heroes involved and Stormy Monday. With its own big band, which, inter alia, Alan Barnes, nature themes, David Newton, Henry Lowther, Peter King and Malcolm Griffiths belonged, he led in 1996 to the Appleby Jazz Festival 's " Pennine Suite" on. Currently, he has next to his trio and a jazz octet Electric and forwards together with Bobby Wellins a quintet.
Weller won 1994, 1996 and 1998, the top tenor Award.
Disco Graphical Notes
Lexigraphic entries
- Ian Carr et al Jazz Rough Guide Stuttgart 1999; ISBN 3-476-01584- X
- Richard Cook & Brian Morton: The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings, 8th Edition, London, Penguin, 2006 ISBN 0-141-02327-9