tom harrell
Tom Harrell was born on June 16, 1946, in Urbana, Illinois, and raised in Los Altos, California, where his father taught at Stanford University.
He took up trumpet when he was eight “… I liked the sound of it … it’s an extrovert sort of instrument, and that appealed to me”. He was giggin around the San Francisco peninsula by the time he was 13, and studied, still a teenager, with Herb Pathoe, John Handy, Charles Bubb and Lee Konitz, graduating from Stanford in 1969, the same year he went on the road with Stan Kenton. He joined Woody Herman in 1970, formed a Latin-Jazz group (Azteca ) in 1971, and started working with Horace Silver in 1973: ” … I learned about all the elements of music from him “, says Harrell: ” … he would always do material with different kinds of rhythmic feels … I think i helped my rhythmic awareness because he is a master of rhythm”. The Silver gig led Harrell to move to New York, where he still lives today.
After leaving Silver, Tom co-led a Big Band with bassist Sam Jones, and also worked with the likes of Mel Lewis (1981-19820, Lionel Hampton and Bob Berg. In 1984 he joined The Phil Woods Quintet, where he was extensively featured, touring the States, Europe and Japan, and recording with the band. Harrell left the band in 1989, but during that period he also co-led a band with Swiss alto saxophonist George Robert (1987 - 1992).
During the nineties Tom has been featured in various “all star” packages, like “The New York Jazz Giants” (1992) or “The Madarao all stars” (1993). but has devoted most of his time to promote his own group: since the time THE TOM HARREL QUINTET was first formed, the band has included some of the finest talent in the New York Jazz scene, like saxophonists Joe Lovano, Javon Jackson, Lew Tabackin or Don Braden, pianists Mulgrew Miller, Kenny Werner and Danilo Perez, bassists Ray Drummond and Peter Washington, and drummers Leon Parker, Kenny Washington or Brian Grice. The band has appeared in New York’s best Jazz Clubs, like Fat Tuesday’s, The Village Vanguard, Bradley’s and Visiones, and was featured at Town Hall during the JVC Festival in 1992.
As a composer and arranger, Harrell has provided orchestral arrangements of his original compositions for the Village Vanguard orchestra, the Danish radio Big Band, the Cleveland Jazz orchestra, and the Dutch Metropole Orchestra.
Tom Harrell has over 100 compositions published and recorded, and has appeared in a similar number of recordings with some of the most respected musicians in the world. He has won awards by the French Academie du Jazz, has been named “Trumpet Player of the Year 1996″ by both Downbeat’s Readers and critics Poll, and also took the number one slot in the Jazz Times Reader’s Poll of 1997.