Jimmy blanton biography

The saga of Duke Ellington's orchestra is an epic that lasted from the 1920s to the 1970s and has spanned the history of jazz itself. It is not only the story of a man and his music, but of the musicians that he wrote for and that interpreted his songs. Ellington prided himself on knowing his musicians' individual sounds so well that he could tailor each composition to the specific musical identity of each his sidemen. So to say that one or two musicians were standouts from the most fabled orchestra in American history is no small statement indeed. Yet one period is constantly referred to as the cream of the Ellington crop, the 1939-1941 "Blanton-Webster band." While Webster is regarded as one of the finest swing tenor sax players ever, he was not the pioneering musician that Jimmy Blanton, bassist extraordinaire, was.

Jimmy Blanton (1918-1942) was the musical godfather of bebop bass. While some have argued that Benny Goodman alumnus Slam Stewart was the first bassist to make the bass a solo vehicle for improvisation, his solos were merely decorated b

•