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Curly Russell

Dillon "Curley" (aka "Curly") Russell was an American jazz double-bassist, who played bass on many bebop recordings.

A member of the Tadd Dameron Sextet, in his heyday he was in demand for his ability to play at the rapid tempos typical of bebop, and appears on several key recordings of the period. He left the music business in the late 1950s.

According to jazz historian Phil Schaap the classic bebop tune "Donna Lee", a contrafact on "Back Home Again In Indiana", was named after Curley's daughter. In 2002, she donated her father's bass to the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University.

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Read "New Faces - New Sounds" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


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