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Guido Basso

Guido Basso (trumpet, flugelhorn, harmonica, conductor, arranger and composer) was born in Montreal in 1937. Guido was only nine years old when he began playing the trumpet, becoming recognized as a prodigy while studying at Montreal’s Conservatoire de musique du Quebec. He was just a teenager when he was already becoming prominent on the Montreal club scene, where singer Vic Damone first heard him and took him on an international tour with him for two years.

In 1958 he joined singer Pearl Bailey and her bandleader husband, famed drummer Louis Bellson, touring North America with them for three years before moving to Toronto to join the busy studio and television scene there. His playing career as stan-out sidemand and leader, soared, and he became one ot the biggest jazz names in the country, and beginning in 1975, frequently organized and led big band concerts at toronto’s Canadian National Exhibition featuring jazz luminaries including Dizzy Gillespie, Quincy Jones, Woody Herman, Duke Ellington and Count Basie. He can be heard on hundreds of record albums, CD’s, playing and recording with stars from Buddy Rich to Diana Krall.

Basso was a charter member of Rob McConnell & The Boss Brass, and the Rob McConnell Tentet, playing with the Boss Brass as a featured soloist throughout their lifetime and appearing on more than 30 Boss Brass recordings. Guido was credited for coining the phrase. “One attacks the trumpet and makes love to a flugelhorn!”


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4
Album Review

Guido Basso: One More For The Road

Read "One More For The Road" reviewed by Pierre Giroux


Guido Basso, known for his mastery of the flugelhorn and trumpet, died in February of 2023. From his earliest days in Montreal playing with the Maury Kaye band, to working in the US with top performers such Vic Damone and Pearl Bailey, Basso gained a reputation as a consummate musician who was capable of working in a variety of settings. Deciding not to remain in the U.S., Basso returned to Canada and settled in Toronto. Here, he established himself as ...

6
Album Review

The Rob McConnell Sextet: Old Friends / New Music

Read "Old Friends / New Music" reviewed by Pierre Giroux


Rob McConnell was a valve trombonist, arranger, composer and leader of the big band called the Boss Brass, which set a new standard for jazz writing through the use of complex passages and close section harmony, and in 1983 won a Grammy. In this digital-only release by Cornerstone Records, McConnell leads a sextet comprised of Guido Basso on trumpet/flugelhorn, Rick Wilkins on tenor sax, Ed Bickert on guitar, Steve Wallace on bass and Terry Clarke on drums in a session ...

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Jon Deshler
flugelhorn

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Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Old Friends / New...

Cornerstone Records Inc.
2023

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One More For The Road

Cornerstone Records Inc.
2023

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And All That Latin...

Ictus Records
1978

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