Don Butterfield

Don Butterfield
Birth name	Donald Butterfield
Born	April 1, 1923(1923-04-01)
Origin	Centralia, Washington, USA
Died	November 27, 2006(2006-11-27) (aged 83) Clifton, New Jersey
Genres	Jazz, classical
Occupations	Musician
Instruments	Tuba
Years active	1940s–2005
Labels	Atlantic
Associated acts	Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Sinatra, Charles Mingus, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Jimmy Smith, many others

Don Butterfield (April 1, 1923 – November 27, 2006) was an American jazz and classical tuba player.

Biography

Butterfield took up tuba in high school. He wanted to play trumpet, but the band director assigned him to tuba instead. After serving in the U.S. Military from 1942-46 he went on to study the instrument at Juilliard School, a prestigious music conservatory in New York.

He started his professional career in the late 1940s playing for the CBS and NBC radio networks. He played in orchestras, including the American Symphony, on albums by Jackie Gleason until he became a full time member at the Radio City Music Hall.

In the 1950s, he switched to jazz, backing such artists as Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Sinatra, Charles Mingus, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Jimmy Smith, and Moondog. He fronted his own sextet for a 1955 album on Atlantic Records and played the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival.

In the 1970s he worked as a session musician. He played on recordings for a variety of artists and on television and film soundtracks, including The Godfather Part II.

The Grove dictionary of music calls his playing style, "uncommonly florid, a skill that made him of value as a jazz musician... He was one of the first modern jazz players who, rather than simply marking out the bass line, rediscovered the possibility of bringing to the instrument a facility akin to that of a trumpeter."

Butterfield suffered a stroke in 2005, which left him unable to play, and his death was from a stroke-related illness.

Discography

As Sideman

With Cannonball Adderley

• African Waltz (Riverside, 1961)
• Domination (Capitol, 1965)

With Nat Adderley

• Autobiography (Atlantic, 1964)

With David Amram

• Subway Night (RCA, 1972)

With Donald Byrd

• I'm Tryin' to Get Home (Blue Note, 1965)

With Bill Evans

• Symbiosis (MPS, 1974)

With Roland Kirk

• The Roland Kirk Quartet Meets the Benny Golson Orchestra (Mercury, 1963)

With Gil Mellé

• Gil's Guests (Prestige, 1963)

With Charles Mingus

• The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (Impulse!, 1963)
• Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus (Impulse!, 1963)

With Wes Montgomery

• Movin' Wes (Verve, 1964)

With Lee Morgan

• Delightfulee (Blue Note, 1966)

With Oliver Nelson

• The Kennedy Dream (Impulse!, 1967)

With Oscar Peterson

• Bursting Out with the All-Star Big Band! (Verve, 1962)

With Sonny Rollins

• Sonny Rollins and the Big Brass (Metro Jazz, 1958)

With Jimmy Smith

• The Cat (Verve, 1964)

With Billy Taylor

• My Fair Lady Loves Jazz (Impulse!, 1957)

With Clark Terry

• Top & Bottom Brass (Riverside/OJC, 1959)

With The Thad Jones / Mel Lewis Orchestra

• New Life (A&M, 1975)

References

• Acclaimed tuba player dies, Associated Press, November 29, 2006 (retrieved via Forbes on December 1, 2006).

External links

• Don Butterfield at Allmusic

Persondata
Name	Butterfield, Don
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	April 1, 1923
Place of birth
Date of death	November 27, 2006
Place of death