Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Fred Wesley was born July 4, 1943 in Columbus, Georgia and raised in Mobile, Alabama. The son of a high school teacher and big band leader as a child he took piano and later trumpet lessons. At around the age of twelve his father brought a trombone home, whereupon he switched.

During the 1960s and 1970s Wesley went to R&B as many jazz musicians did to earn a living and became a pivotal member of James Brown’s bands, playing on many hit recordings including “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud”, “Mother Popcorn” and co-writing tunes such as “Hot Pants”. His slippery riffs and pungent, precise solos, complementing those of saxophonist Maceo Parker, gave Brown’s R&B, soul, and funk tunes their instrumental punch.

In the 1970s he also served as bandleader and musical director of Brown’s band The J.B.’s and did much of the composing and arranging for the group. His name was credited on ‘Fred Wesley & the J.B.’s’ recording of “Doing It To Death” which sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold record 1973. Leaving Brown’s band in 1975, Wesley spent several years playing with George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic projects, even recording a couple of albums as the leader of a spin-off group, The Horny Horns.

Wesley became a force in jazz in 1978 when he joined the Count Basie Orchestra. He released his first jazz album as a leader, “To Someone” in 1988, followed by “New Friends”, Comme Ci Comme Ca, and the live album “Swing and Be Funky” and “Amalgamation”.

In the early nineties Fred toured with former JB colleagues Pee Wee Ellis and Maceo Parker, as the JB Horns. When Ellis left, the band became The Maceo Parker Band with Wesley as the featured trombonist until 1996 when he formed his own band, The Fred Wesley Group, now known as Fred Wesley and the New JBs.

Wesley’s 35-year career includes playing with and arranging for a wide variety of other artist such as Ray Charles, Lionel Hampton, Randy Crawford, Vanessa Williams, The SOS Band, Cameo, Van Morrison, Socalled and rappers De La Soul, to name a few, while many other artists have sampled his work.

He has written an autobiography “Hit Me, Fred: Recollections of a Sideman”. Wesley served as an adjunct professor in the Jazz Studies department of the School of Music at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro from 2004 to 2006, and now works with students as a visiting artist at numerous other schools including Berklee College of Music and Columbia College of Chicago.

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