Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

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GREEN, Urbie

(b Urban Clifford Green, 8 August 1926, Mobile AL, d 31 December 2018, Hellertown PA) Trombonist. With complete facility, beautiful tone in all registers and lyrical phrasing, he was not a household name outside the jazz world, but he was the 'first-call trombone if there ever was one,' wrote Fernando Ortiz de Urbina. 'He's on more records than we'll ever know.' At age 16 he was on the road with Tommy Reynolds’ band, and soon graduated to bigger names, working for Jan Savitt, Frankie Carle, Gene Krupa (1947-50), and Woody Herman (1950-53). He then became the busiest freelance trombone in the business.

He played on Buck Clayton's legendary Jam Session albums on Columbia '53-4, and came back 20 years later for more Clayton jam sessions on Chiaroscuro; and on Manny Albam's Jazz Workshop LP '55 and on Albam's Drum Suite '56, then made his own Let's Face The Music And Dance '57, all on RCA. He appeared on film in The Benny Goodman Story '56 and later fronted Tommy Dorsey’s ghost band '66-67. At Lincoln Center with an all-star band led by Benny Carter, he played in a special tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, and later in Thailand, with the Benny Carter all-stars, in a private performance for the King of Thailand.

A multiple winner of Down Beat and NARAS ('Most Valuable Player') awards, he backed countless singers on their albums, including Billie Holiday (Lady In Satin '58), Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Peggy Lee, Perry Como, Barbra Streisand, Pearl Bailey, and Aretha Franklin. He recorded with trombonists J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding (one of six trombones in their Jay And Kai Octet), as well as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Leonard Bernstein, Coleman Hawkins, Quincy Jones, Burt Bacharach, Antônio Carlos Jobim (Wave '67 on A&M), and countless others. His own albums began with Blues and Other Shades of Green '55 on Paramount. He later made several albums for the Command and Project 3 labels, where the boss was Enoch Light, who knew a beautful sound when he heard one.

Urbie Green encouraged young musicians with countless clinics for students at high schools and colleges around the world. He continued playing near home at inns and festivals around Delaware Water Gap (including the annual Celebration of the Arts) into the last years of his life.