Home » Jazz Musicians » Booker Little

Booker Little

Booker Little was a prolific trumpeter and composer by any standard, but considering his tragically brief life, his musical achievements are astonishing. A Memphis native, he trained at the Chicago Conservatory of Music, where he impressed Sonny Rollins. This association led to a number of successful recordings with Max Roach in the late 1950s. Little went on to perform on other classic albums, such as John Coltrane’s Africa/Brass and Eric Dolphy’s At the Five Spot.

His trumpet sound was characterized both by undeniable technical facility and a dark tone that reflects the bittersweet nature of his life. But it is as a composer that Little left his real mark. Despite fluency in the language of Be-Bop, his own albums display a progressive slant toward composition -- albums such as Out Front are distinguished by dense, dissonant harmonies; tempo and meter shifts; and extended forms that give equal attention to composed and improvised sections.

Little suffered greatly due to the medical condition of uremia, and he died October 5, 1961 of kidney failure. He was 23 years old.

Tags

898
Profile

Introducing Booker Little

Read "Introducing Booker Little" reviewed by Robert Levin


[Editor's Note: This article first appeared in Jazz & Pop Magazine, 1970. Little died in 1961, just a few months after this interview was originally published in Metronome]Booker Little, twenty-three year-old composer, arranger and trumpet player (the order is arbitrary, each role has equal importance to him), has lately come to demonstrate, in recordings and as the musical director of the Max Roach group, a talent that promises size.As is true of many jazz players of ...

605
Album Review

Max Roach: We Insist! Freedom Now Suite

Read "We Insist! Freedom Now Suite" reviewed by Chris May


Re-released following the passing of drummer Max Roach in August 2007, We Insist! Freedom Now Suite (Candid, 1960) remains a work of enduring musical and social importance. Notwithstanding Roach's central role in the creation of bop, or his later hard bop explorations with trumpeter Clifford Brown, it is, by some margin, the most perfectly realised album he recorded. 1960 was the year in which black Americans' struggle for civil rights reached critical mass. In February, anti-segregationist lunch-counter sit-ins ...

Read more articles
176

Music Industry

Too Little, Too Soon: Booker Little

Too Little, Too Soon: Booker Little

Source: All About Jazz


Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

We Insist! Freedom...

Candid Records
2007

buy

Complete Recordings

Lone Hill Jazz
2005

buy

New York Sessions

Lone Hill Jazz
2004

buy

Booker Little

Lone Hill Jazz
2003

buy

Far Cry

Analogue Productions
2000

buy

Milestones

Lone Hill Jazz
1983

buy

Videos

Similar

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.