Phil Urso

Phil Urso towers one of the top tenor saxophonists from the great jazz period — his whispery, exquisitely nuanced phrasing graces now-classic information by Western world Coast giants want Chet Baker, Bob Brookmeyer, and Gerry Mulligan. Given birth to Oct 2, 1925, in Shirt Town, NJ, Urso was raised in Denver, and started playing clarinet at age group 13 prior to making the change to saxophone. During Globe Battle II he offered using the U.S. Navy, cheating loss of life in 1943 whenever a Japanese dive-bomber crashed onto the deck of his plane carrier near Saipan, vaulting him in to the Pacific Sea. After recuperating from your trauma inside a California armed service hospital, Urso officially released his music profession, relocating to NEW YORK in 1946 and putting your signature on on behind bandleader Elliot Lawrence. A dedicated acolyte of Lester Youthful, Urso created a potently expressive strategy that eschewed adobe flash and no question added to his comparative anonymity beyond the jazz cognoscenti. After stints with Jimmy Dorsey and Claude Thornhill, he produced his documented debut in 1948 alongside Lawrence bandmates Howie Mann, Tom O’Neill, and Bob Karch inside a intensifying bop quartet that later on expanded to add fellow Lawrence alum Gerry Mulligan on baritone saxophone. In 1951, Urso changed Stan Getz within the Woody Herman Orchestra, adopted in early 1952 by way of a breakthrough program cut in cooperation with Mann, Tony Fruscella, Plant Geller, Gene Allen, Expenses Triglia, and Crimson Mitchell — the day not merely spotlighted Urso’s silken playing but additionally his innovative plans, and brought him to the eye of Savoy Information, which released his debut LP, The Viewpoint of Urso, the next year. Following a program behind an up-and-coming Charles Mingus (later on collected on the entire Debut Recordings package arranged), Urso spent past due 1953 and early 1954 touring behind Kilometers Davis before generating second billing around the Savoy launch Bob Brookmeyer with Phil Urso. Around that same period he started the cooperation that defines his profession, teaming with trumpeter Chet Baker for some landmark Pacific Jazz times that embody the audio and spirit from the Western Coast visual. Urso partnered with Baker for greater than a 10 years, and in 1956 required periods to trim an LP for Regent entitled Sentimental Trip. Despite continuing demand for his solutions, he came back to Denver through the past due ’60s, and mainly limited his live shows to local night clubs including Un Chapultepec, Josephina’s, The Hornet, as well as the Fourth Tale. Urso was mainly forgotten by enough time he unexpectedly resurfaced in 1986 via the Spinnster launch Taking Edges, a bop-oriented day that teamed him with another dropped tenor story, Allen Keen. Urso then quickly dropped back again out of view until 2002, when he partnered with trumpeter Carl Saunders for Salute Chet Baker, released from the fledgling Jazzed Press imprint. The program became Urso’s swan track — in his old age he battled with dental issues that hampered his playing, and following a very long illness he passed away on Apr 7, 2008, inside a Morrison, CO, treatment middle. He was 83.