Joe Gordon (musician)

Joseph Henry "Joe" Gordon ( born May 15, 1928 in Boston, † November 4, 1963 in Los Angeles ) was an American jazz trumpeter. He became famous for his play in the bands of Dizzy Gillespie and Shelly Manne.

Life and work

Gordon played in 1947 in Boston in his own ensembles and orchestras in local, also with Georgie Auld and Charlie Mariano. In the spring of 1958 he went with the orchestra by Dizzy Gillespie on tour again in the summer had his own band in Boston and was hired by Herb Pomeroy for his band. He was also briefly a member of the Jazz Messengers. After that he settled on the West Coast and worked from November 1958 Shelly Manne and various other formations of the West Coast jazz. In September 1959, the legendary recordings by Shelly Manne & his Men originated in the Black Hawk jazz club in San Francisco, in the spring of 1960, Gordon visited Europe as a member of man's quintet. His strongly influenced by Dizzy Gillespie playing can be heard also on recordings with Art Blakey, Barney Kessel, Helen Humes and Thelonious Monk. In 1954, he took on an album under his own name.

A successful solo career did not succeed. At the age of only 35 years, he died in a room fire killed.

Auswahldiskographie

• Introducing Joe Gordon ( Mercury Records, 1955)
• Lookin 'Good (Contemporary Records, 1961)

• Charlie Mariano: The New Sounds From Boston ( Prestige Records, 1951)
• Barney Kessel: Some Like It Hot (Contemporary Records, 1959)
• Helen Humes Swingin 'With Humes (Contemporary Records, 1961)