Kenny Dorham
Overshadowed for most of his career by the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro, Miles Davis, Clifford Brown, and Lee Morgan, Kenny Dorham's abilities as a composer and unique voice as an advanced bop trumpet player are underrated to this day.
McKinley Howard Dorham was born on August 30, 1924 on a ranch called Post Oak, near Fairfield, Texas. He attended Anderson High School in Austin, where he began teaching himself to play piano and trumpet, and spending much of his time on the school boxing team. He later enrolled at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, studying chemistry and minoring in physics. During this time he experimented with arranging, writing for the stage band, where he met such players as Wild Bill Davis, Harold Land, and Roy Porter.
He was drafted into the army in 1942 (spending some time with the army boxing team) and was discharged about a year later.
In late 1943 he joined the Russell Jacquet orchestra in Houston, and he spent much of 1944 playing the band of Frank Humphries. By 1945, Dorham had gained positions with Dizzy Gillespie's short-lived first big band, and then replaced Fats Navarro in Billy Eckstine's orchestra. In 1946 he recorded with the Be Bop Boys (aka the 52nd Street Boys, including Fats Navarro), and spent time playing in the bands of Lionel Hampton and Mercer Ellington.
During this time, Dorham continued to compose and arrange (he arranged Okay for Baby for Lucky Millinder and Benny Carter, and Malibu for Cootie Williams), ghosting arrangements for Walter 'Gil' Fuller which were sold to several name big bands, including Harry James, Jimmy Dorsey, and Gene Krupa.
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Album Review
- Be Bop Live by Mark Corroto
- Be Bop Live by Stefano Merighi
Radio
Multiple Reviews
My Blue Note Obsession
Album Review
- Una Mas by Greg Simmons
- Kenny Dorham - The Flamboyan, Queens, NY, 1963 - featuring Joe Henderson by Francis Lo Kee
- 'Round About Midnight at the Cafe Bohemia by Matt Marshall
- Kenny Dorham: Jazz Contrasts by Samuel Chell
- Jazz Contrasts by David Rickert
August 30, 2020
Jazz Musician of the Day: Kenny Dorham
June 16, 2020
February 07, 2020
Celebrating Ten Years Of Jazz OUTside At Kenny Dorham's Backyard in...
August 30, 2019
Jazz Musician of the Day: Kenny Dorham
August 30, 2018
Jazz Musician of the Day: Kenny Dorham
August 30, 2017
Jazz Musician of the Day: Kenny Dorham
May 04, 2017
August 30, 2016
Jazz Musician of the Day: Kenny Dorham
August 29, 2015
Jazz Musician of the Day: Kenny Dorham
June 23, 2015
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