Roswell Rudd

2000 Guggenheim Fellowships: Roswell Rudd

Trombonist Roswell Rudd was born in Sharon, CT in 1935. He studied horn from the age of 11 and taught himself to play trombone while in his teens. While attending Yale University he belonged to Eli's Chosen Six (to 1958), a dixieland band. He worked with Herbie Nichols (1960-62), belonged to a quartet with Steve Lacy and Dennis Charles that for some time played exclusively the music of Thelonious Monk (1962-3), and in early 1962 joined Bill Dixon's free-jazz group, of which Archie Shepp and Charles were also members. In the summer of 1964 he was a founding member with John Tchicai and Milford Graves of the New York Art Quartet, for which he also wrote compositions and arrangements, and later that year he took part in the October Revolution in Jazz. He joined Shepp's group in the winter of 1965, with which he played in London and at the Donaueshingen Musiktage in 1967. With Robin Kenyatta, Karl Berger, and Lee Konitz he formed the Primordial Quartet in early 1968, the size and membership of which varied considerably during the next few years. In 1969 he worked with a group led by Gate Barbieri that included Haden, Beaver Harris, and Lonnie Liston Smith as sidemen; he later recorded with the group. After disbanding the Primordial Quartet in March 1970 he wrote compositions for the Jazz Composer's Orchestra and performed and recorded as a leader into the 1980s. Rudd has brought to free jazz many of the qualities more often associated with the early jazz trombone; these include a large, warm tone, and earthy vocal sound punctuated by growls, and a deeply felt sense of rhythm.