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By Eric Bennett |
Jan 1, 2008
1922 -- 1960
Jazz bassist, bandleader, and bebop innovator.
Oscar Pettiford helped to invent and popularize the bass solo in Jazz, significantly expanding the vocabulary and syntax of the language of the bass. Pettiford drew inspiration from the playing style of Jimmy
Blanton, a bassist with Duke
Ellington's band. Blanton had emphasized the melodic possibilities of the instrument at a time when the bass was most often relegated to the rhythm section of an ensemble. Pettiford, following Blanton's lead, plucked his strings with the length, rather than the width, of his index finger, thus extending the tonal and temporal possibilities for individual notes. At his best Pettiford produced a melodic clarity and complexity that echoed that of jazz guitar, and this bravura lent itself to a solo playing style. Pettiford was considered one of the top three bassists of his time, rivaling as well as influencing his contemporaries Ray
Brown and Charles
Mingus.Born in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, to parents of Choctaw, Cherokee, and African extraction, Pettiford moved with his family to Minneapolis when he was three. Pettiford came from a show-business family, and he contributed to the family's musical act as it toured the Minnesota vaudeville circuit. He demonstrated precocious musicality and by the age of fourteen was devoting almost all of his attention to the string bass.In 1943, Pettiford joined on with Charlie
Barnet's big-band and followed the group to New York, where he began working with other musicians. During his early New York years Pettiford collaborated with Roy
Eldridge, Thelonious
Monk, and Dizzy
Gillespie. Pettiford participated in the legendary jam sessions at Minton's Playhouse, helping to establish the roots of Bebop, a frenetic, hard-driving, and heavily improvisational style of jazz that broke away from the sweetness and set-arrangements of swing. In 1944 Pettiford and Gillespie headed the first working bebop combo, at the Onyx Club on 52nd Street, but the two parted within a year because of personal differences.After a brief stint with the legendary tenor saxaphonist Coleman
Hawkins, Pettiford joined his childhood idol, Duke Ellington, with whose band he remained for three years. Despite a long-running alcohol problem, Pettiford continued to be active on the club and concert circuit both in the United States and abroad. In the early 1950s he returned to New York full time to lead the Café Bohemia's house band, and in 1958 Pettiford emigrated to Copenhagen, where he remained until his death in 1960.In addition to helping invent bebop and elevating the status of the bass in jazz, Pettiford won many music industry awards for his recordings and contributed a number of memorable songs to the jazz repertory, including Tricrotism, Bohemia After Dark, and Swingin’ Till the Girls Come Home.See also Music, African American.
Copyright © 2005 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
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