By Odeisel
There are many legends who represent an era and while they have achieved timeless things, their sphere of influence is confined to their space. It’s very rare that people survive their initial era of relevance and go on to contribute to the advancement of others. On February 4th, 2013 music and the world at large lost a giant of a man when Donald Byrd breathed his last.
Byrd played to support role as jazz trumpeter to many established legends from the bebop era, sitting in with immortals like Thelonius Monk, John Coltrane, Lionel Hampton and Art Blackely to name a few. While many of these legends learned by ear, Byrd’s brilliance was built on the foundations of music theory learned in colleges and universities. He earned his master’s from the Manhattan School of Music, on top of his B.A. in music from Wayne State. Eventually, Byrd would go on, in true renaissance fashion, to earn two additional master’s degrees from Columbia, a law degree and a doctorate from Columbia’s Teacher’s College.
Byrd’s sound was melodic and efficient, with very little waste of sound. He was also very prolific, playing on dozens of albums during the 50s and 60s. Thoughtful and self-aware, he was also wary of jazz’ slow absorption by the overarching mainstream culture, knowing that such an adoption would lead to the Black community losing touch with the music. That idea played a major role in s decision later on, to teach at historically Black Colleges and to consistently reinvent himself to stay on the cusp of the creation of Black music in all of its increasingly divergent permutations.
Byrd’s education allowed him the latitude to learn new things and avoid the pitfalls of those music tragedies where all they have is the music and they fall prey to drugs to keep up their pace or to drown out the deafening silence when the cheers die down. Byrd taught at a number of colleges including NYU, Rutgers, Hampton, Cornell, Oberlin College, Howard University, North Carolina Central and a few others.
Byrd was a prolific legend in his own right, leading his own bands throughout his jazz and post bebop career. He really found his stride in the 70s, lending his experience and presence to the burgeoning fuck movement and forming the foundations of acid jazz and other post-modern, sample-driven styles of music including Hip-Hop. While jazz musicians like Wynton Marsalis played cantankerous haters to Hip-Hop music, Byrd lasted long enough to appear on two separate Jazzmatazz albums from rap legend Guru.
Our forefathers often release their respect for our eras begrudgingly, never hesitating to remind us that we don’t know anything about the old days and how wet we are behind the ears. The rarest of the rare lend that hand and share their gifts and understanding with us and allow us to grow and advance our collective culture. The brilliant Donald Byrd was a giant who was never too big to push us all forward. Those kinds of minds diminish the world with their absence. R.I.P.
