Ted Curson -

Ted Curson (June 3, 1935 — Nov. 4, 2012) was an American post-bop/jazz-funk trumpeter, composer, and bandleader from Philadelphia. Curson played with Cecil Taylor and Charles Mingus, then co-led a quintet with tenor saxophonist Bill Barron through the mid-Sixties. His leader catalog stretched from Plenty of Horn and Tears for Dolphy through Atlantic, Arista, and Inner City releases, alongside a decades-long association with Finland’s Pori Jazz Festival.

Background

Ted Curson was born Theodore Curson on June 3, 1935, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Curson played saxophone from age five and took up trumpet at ten, after his father obtained an old horn from the Philadelphia Navy Yard. His father preferred alto saxophone because he admired Louis Jordan.

Curson studied theory and composition at Jules E. Mastbaum Vocational Technical High School and continued formal study at the Granoff School of Music. Saxophonist Jimmy Heath gave Curson private lessons. Curson also met visiting musicians through the nearby Heath household, where pianist John Lewis taught him diminished chords and the changes to “Lullaby of Birdland.”

Curson led a Philadelphia group on school vacations with pianist Bobby Timmons, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath. The teenagers played neighborhood functions and joined Local 274 after a union representative stopped a Reynolds Hall engagement over union cards. Curson took a summer job with saxophonist Charlie Ventura at the Red Hill Inn in New Jersey after graduation from Mastbaum.

Miles Davis heard Curson play in Philadelphia around age fifteen or sixteen and gave him a card with an invitation to call in New York. Curson moved to New York in 1956 to study at John Costello’s trumpet school. Pianist Duke Jordan gave Curson his first New York job at Brooklyn’s Continental. Curson then worked briefly with pianist Mal Waldron.

Curson encountered pianist Cecil Taylor at a jam session and joined the Taylor group for a year of rehearsals. Curson made his recording debut with Taylor at Nola Penthouse Sound Studios on April 15, 1959, where he joined tenor saxophonist Bill Barron, bassist Buell Neidlinger, and drummer Denis Charles on three pieces for Love for Sale.

Curson joined bassist Charles Mingus in 1960 after a brief Showplace engagement with drummer Philly Joe Jones. Mingus first employed Curson at the Half Note and then at the Showplace with multi-instrumentalist Eric Dolphy and drummer Dannie Richmond. The Mingus group played the Jazz à Juan festival in Antibes on July 13 with Curson, Dolphy, tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin, and Richmond.

Curson joined Mingus, Dolphy, and Richmond at Nola Penthouse Sound Studios on Oct. 20 for Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus. Curson recorded his first leader album, Plenty of Horn, at Bell Sound Studios on April 11, 1961, with producer Hy Weiss for Old Town Records.

Discography:

Plenty of Horn (1961)
Plays Fire Down Below (1963)
Tears for Dolphy (1964 • Ted Curson Quartet)
The New Thing and the Blue Thing (1965)
Urge (1966)
Ode to Booker Ervin (1970)
Pop Wine (1971)
Quicksand (1974)
Blue Piccolo (1976)
Jubilant Power (live, 1976)
Blowin’ Away (1978 • Dizzy Reece & Ted Curson)
The Trio (1979)
I Heard Mingus (1980)
Snake Johnson (1981)
Ted Curson & Co. (1982)
Contemporation and Jazz (Současnost a jazz) (1983 • Baroque Jazz Quintet, Bohdan Warchal Orchestra & Ted Curson)