Trumpeter Dizzy Reece Returns to the Stage

From JazzTimes...

Trumpeter Dizzy Reece makes his first live appearance in the New York City area in more than 10 years this Sunday, May 15, at the Monmouth County Library Headquarters in Manalapan, N.J.

This free concert starts at 2 p.m. and features Reece with pianist Mike Longo, bassist Cameron Brown and drummer Ray Mosca. The library is located at 125 Symmes Drive, Manalapan, N.J.; phone 732-431-7220. For directions, click here.

Reece is best known for the four albums he made for Blue Note between 1958 and 1960, which were packaged together last year in a critically acclaimed box set by Mosaic Select. The Kingston, Jamaica-born Reece was living in England and recording for the Tempo label when he was offered a Blue Note contract on the strength of the albums he made over there -- and because Miles Davis raved about his playing to Francis Wolff and Alfred Lion. Reece’s primary music style is progressive hard bop, but his harmonic sense -- in his solos and in his compositions -- display his absorption of Indian and Arabic music in addition to the jazz foundations of blues and swing.

While Reece hasn’t been a prolific recording artist in the 45 years he’s lived in the U.S. (with occasional extended stays in Europe along the way), the trumpeter kept busy working in the big bands of Dizzy Gillespie, Clifford Jordan and the Paris Reunion Band, and in small-group settings with the likes of Dexter Gordon, Hank Mobley, Duke Jordan, Philly Joe Jones, Ted Curson and the Sun Ra Arkestra’s John Gilmore.

For more information on the trumpeter, go to his Web site: DizzyReece.com