Donald Byrd
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Donaldson Toussaint L'Ouverture Byrd II (born December 9, 1932) is an American jazz and rhythm and blues trumpeter, born in Detroit, Michigan. He attended Cass Technical High School. He performed with Lionel Hampton before finishing high school. After playing in a military band during a term in the United States Air Force, he obtained a bachelor's degree in music from Wayne State University and a master's degree from Manhattan School of Music. While still at the Manhattan School he joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, replacing Clifford Brown. In 1955, he recorded with Jackie McLean and Mal Waldron. After leaving the Jazz Messengers in 1956 he performed with a wide variety of highly regarded jazz musicians, including John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock, and Thelonious Monk.
In the 1970s, he moved away from his previous hard-bop jazz base and began to record jazz fusion, Jazz-funk, soul-Jazz, and rhythm and blues. Teaming up with the Mizell Brothers, they produced Black Byrd, which was enormously successful and became Blue Note Records' highest-ever selling album. The Mizell Brothers follow-up production albums for Byrd, Places and Spaces, Steppin' Into Tomorrow and Street Lady were also big sellers, and have subsequently provided a rich source of samples for acid jazz artists such as Us3.
He has taught music at Rutgers University, the Hampton Institute, New York University, Howard University, and Oberlin College. In 1974 he created the Blackbyrds, a fusion group consisting of his best students. They scored several major hits, including "Walking In Rhythm" and "Blackbyrds Theme".
In 1993, Byrd teamed up with Gang Starr MC Guru for the track "Loungin'" on the Jazzmatazz project.
Albums
2006 Pop-Jazz Volume 1
2005 In a Soulful Mood
2004 Mustang! (Japan Bonus Tracks)
2004 At the Half Note Cafe, Vol. 1-2 (Bonus Tracks)
2004 Free Form (Japan Bonus Track)
2003 Out of This World
2003 At the Half Note Cafe, Vol. 2
2003 At the Half Note Cafe, Vol. 1
2000 Touchstone
1991 A City Called Heaven
1987 Harlem Blues
1983 Words, Sounds, Colors and Shapes
1981 Love Byrd: Donald Byrd and 125th St, N.Y.C.
1978 Thank You...For F.U.M.L. (Funking Up My Life)
1976 Caricatures
1975 Places and Spaces
1973 Street Lady
1972 Black Byrd
1971 Ethiopian Knights
1970 Electric Byrd
1969 Fancy Free
1967 Slow Drag
1965 Up With Donald Byrd
1963 A New Perspective
1961 Free Form
1960 Byrd in Flight
1959 Byrd in Hand
Several other albums and re-releases originally recorded in the mid 1950's thru the mid 1960's exist mainly on Blue Note Records.
