Eugene Wright

" The Senator " Eugene Joseph Wright ( * May 29, 1923 in Chicago ) is an American jazz double bassist. He is best known as a member of the Dave Brubeck Quartet, in particular by the most famous album of the group Time Out (1959 ), with pianist Brubeck, drummer Joe Morello and saxophonist Paul Desmond.

Life and work

Wright, the bass playing taught himself essentially played with the Lonnie Simmons Group and led from 1943 to 1946 his own band, the " Dukes of Swing ", which included time as Sun Ra and Yusef Lateef.

Wright was then with Gene Ammons ( 1946-48, 1949-51 ), with Count Basie (1948 /49), at Arnett Cobb (1951 /52) and worked with Red Norvo, with whom he went on an international tour. But his big breakthrough came when he was a member of the band of Brubeck 1958. He played a very solid jazz, which was influenced by Brubeck's style of play and remained until 1968 in his band. Subsequently, he was for several years the trio of Monty Alexander. Then he was much more active as a studio musician, but also taught. Later he headed the jazz department of the University of Cincinnati.

He also played with Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Carmen McRae, Buddy DeFranco, Red Norvo, Cal Tjader, Kai Winding, Karen Hernandez, Sonny Stitt and Dorothy Donegan.

With Wright Basically, he presented a book of his compositions for double bass, which was published by Hansen.

318947
de