Don Rader (musician)

Don Rader, jazz trumpet player, ca. 2005.

Don Rader (born October 21, 1935, Rochester, Pennsylvania) is an American jazz trumpeter.

Rader began on trumpet at age five, taught initially by his father. He studied at Sam Houston State Teachers College and served in the Navy in the 1950s as a member of the band, then played and arranged for Woody Herman (1959–61), Maynard Ferguson (1961-63), and Count Basie (1963–64), as well as with Louie Bellson, Harry James, Terry Gibbs, Frank Foster, Henry Mancini, Les Brown (1967–72), and Stan Kenton.

Rader has appeared on numerous television programs with various bands and can be seen playing in the trumpet section of The Count Basie Orchestra on the November 10, 1963 episode of THE JUDY GARLAND SHOW.^[1] During his time with Count Basie, Rader played on numerous Basie LP releases and is in the trumpet section on Frank Sinatra's landmark original recording of "Fly Me to the Moon" with the Count Basie Orchestra (Reprise, 1964).

He has also toured with Della Reese, Sarah Vaughn, Andy Williams, Percy Faith, Diana Ross, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lewis (on & off for 28 years), and Bob Hope (on & off for 28 years including 5 tours of wartime Vietnam).^[2]

He put together his own quintet in Los Angeles in 1972, and continued working with West Coast jazz musicians including Lanny Morgan, Lew Tabackin, and Toshiko Akiyoshi. He recorded prolifically as a leader and has also worked in music education for many years, including in Australia in the 1980s. Rader currently resides in the USA and Sydney Australia and continues to teach and tour across the US, Europe, Japan and Australia.

Jazz journalist and historian Scott Yanow describes Rader as "An excellent straight-ahead bop soloist... a perfect example of a jazz musician who would have been much more famous had he lived in New York during much of his career."^[3]

In THE AGE, Leon Gettler wrote "Rader's use of the mute and his phrasing makes him sound so much like Miles Davis you do a double take. But it's his lyricism, that sense of him telling a story through sound, which adds a distinctiveness that's in its own class."^[4]

Discography

• Polluted Tears (DRM Records, 1973)
• Don Rader (Now Records, 1978)
• Wallflower (Discovery Records, 1978)
• Anemone (Jet Danger, 1980)
• A Foreign Affair (Bellaphon Records, 1990)
• Off the Beaten Track (Tall Poppies, 1998)
• Odyssey (2006)

With Count Basie

• Ella and Basie! (Verve, 1963)
• More Hits of the 50's and 60's (Verve, 1963)
• It Might as Well Be Swing (Reprise, 1964)

With Maynard Ferguson

• Maynard '62 (Roulette, 1962)
• Color Him Wild (Mainstream, 1965)
• The Blues Roar (Mainstream, 1965)

References

• Scott Yanow, Don Rader at Allmusic

External links

• Jazz Professional profile of Don Rader.
• Los Angeles Times profile of Don Rader
• Los Angeles Times article about Don Rader
• ABC Jazz live recording of Don Rader Quintet