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Buddy DeFranco was born in Camden, New Jersey, USA on February 17, 1923. He started playing the clarinet when he was 14 years old. His musical career was launched when he entered an amateur swing players' contest in Philadelphia, sponsored by Tommy Dorsey in 1940. After playing in big bands for three years (with Gene Krupa from 1941 to 1942 and Charlie Barnett from 1943 to 1944, he became the principal soloist in Dorsey's orchestra.
Later, he made two unsuccessful attempts to lead his own band and then turned to performing with smaller groups, including Count Basie's octet (1950). Other major events in his career included a tour of Europe with Billie Holiday (1954), the presentation of the première of Nelson Riddle's Cross-country Suite (1958) and his acclaimed recording of Blues Bag, which demonstrated his great skill on the bass clarinet. In 1958, he began teaching, conducting a number of jazz workshops in California schools. Later in his career, he led the Glen Miller Orchestra (1966-1974), but eventually returned to teaching and occasional night-club performances. 1
Impresario Norman Granz recalls one occasion when Buddy DeFranco was performing with the Oscar Peterson Trio at the Théatre des Champs Elysées in France. The jazz fans of Paris were notoriously unruly, doubting that a white man could play jazz, noted Granz. During a solo of Just One of Those Things, DeFranco stepped up the tempo. “Buddy just kept going,” said Granz. “The trio started to exchange glances. The audience began to get restless, then they started whistling and throwing coins. I don't know how they stopped it. I think Oscar just went clunk on the piano and ended it. Buddy came offstage just shaking. He was very hurt.”
Granz was angry. “I got out a chair and went out on stage and sat down,” he said. “First of all, I told them I wasn't going to speak French to them. And then I said, ‘Okay, and I'll tell you something else. You paid me a certain amount of money for two hours of music. I already have your money in my pocket, and I am not going to give it back. This concert ends at five o'clock. Whether you want to listen to this yelling or to music is up to you.' And gradually they began to shush each other up, which is the way it had to be done, and the concert went on.” 2
Later in his career, DeFranco led a quintet with Terry Gibbs, which performed in London and New York. In the mid-1980s, he made some fine recordings as the leader of a quintet with clarinetist John Denman and a harpsichordist. He also found success as a member of Oscar Peterson's quartet with Joe Pass and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen. “His talent (lay) in improvisation with a liquid tone and a prodigious technique, but because of the apparent incompatibility of his chosen instrument and his preferred musical bop style, he has frequently been obliged to perform under circumstances that have failed to challenge his abilities.” 3
Selected Recordings
Crosscurrents with L. Tristano (1949, Cap. 11060)
Buddy De Franco and Oscar Peterson play George Gershwin (1954, Verve 314 557 099-2)
Art Tatum-Buddy DeFranco Quartet with Art Tatum (1956, Verve 8229)
Buddy DeFranco Meets the Oscar Peterson Quartet (1985, Pablo 2310915)
Footnotes
1 Kernfeld, Barry. The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz. London: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1988.
2 Lees, Gene. Oscar Peterson: The Will to Swing. Rocklin, California: Prima Publishing & Communications, 1990.
3 Lees, Gene. Oscar Peterson: The Will to Swing. Rocklin, California: Prima Publishing & Communications, 1990.
O.P. & Friends
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