Ted Curson
Theodore " Ted" Curson ( born June 3, 1935 in Philadelphia, † November 4, 2012 in Montclair ) was an American jazz musician (trumpet, flugelhorn).
Life and work
Curson played five years old saxophone and moved ten year to the trumpet. He studied at Granoff Conservatory of Philadelphia and then at John Costello in New York City. His musical career began at Charlie Ventura; encouraged by Miles Davis, he then played with Mal Waldron, Red Garland, Philly Joe Jones, and Cecil Taylor, with whom he recorded a first album in 1956. In 1959 and 1960 he belonged to the band of Charles Mingus, with whom he played in 1960 at the Festival in Antibes and partook of shots for albums such as Pre -Bird. He then founded his own groups, but also played with Max Roach, Lee Konitz, Andrew Hill, Booker Ervin, Bill Barron, and Archie Shepp. After that, he was based in Europe, lived for a time in Finland, where he regularly appeared Festival from 1966 to the Pori Jazz, and was employed in 1973 at the Schauspielhaus Zurich as a musician. He also wrote film music, as for Teorema by Pier Paolo Pasolini.
The mid-1970s he was identified as the protagonist of the Neobop. Since 1976 he again lived in North America, where he founded a septet with which he introduced himself in 1978 at the Newport Jazz Festival. With the Mingus Dynasty, he played several times at festivals in the U.S. and toured Europe and India. In 1981, he guested with its own octet in New York's Town Hall. Later, he led the house band of the New York Blue Note.
In his last years he supervised a monthly jam session held in Trumpets, a club in Montclair. In summer 2012 he played again with Henry Grimes at New York's Cornelia Street Cafe.
2003 Vincent Gallo used the song " Tears for Dolphy " for the soundtrack of his American- Japanese- French independent essay film The Brown Bunny.
Discography (selection)
- Ted Curson - Fire Down Below ( PrestigeOJC, 1962) Gildo Mahones with George Tucker, Roy Haynes
- Ted Curson - Tears for Dolphy ( Fontana - Freedom - Black Lion, 1964)
- Archie Shepp - Fire Music ( Impulse!, 1965)
- Ted Curson - I Heard Mingus (1980 )
- Ted Curson - Travelling On ( 1990)