Giuffre, Jimmy

▪ 2009

James Peter Giuffre 

      American jazz woodwind player and composer

born April 26, 1921, Dallas, Texas

died April 24, 2008, Pittsfield, Mass.

experimented with jazz sounds and structures and, with a series of combos named the Jimmy Giuffre Three, pioneered chamber jazz—at first in an original, subdued folk-jazz idiom (1956–59) and then in some of the first free-improvisation works. He first became renowned as composer of the Woody Herman band hit “Four Brothers” (1947) and then played saxophones and clarinet with Shorty Rogers and other West Coast figures before leading his own daring recording dates. In the early Three combos, Giuffre played quiet, low-register clarinet and saxophones, joined by guitar and bass or trombone. In the 1960s he concentrated on clarinet and played a bolder, more expressive music that abandoned themes, rhythms, and fixed harmonic structures. Though these later Threes were initially controversial, their influential recordings were hailed when reissued on CD in the 1990s. By then Giuffre, who had taught at colleges for more than a quarter of a century and experimented with jazz–world music fusions, was once again performing free jazz.

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