Biography
Clifford Thornton ranks among the most underappreciated free jazz performers on trumpet and trombone. Philadelphia saw his birth in 1936. During the mid-1950s he took lessons from hard bop trumpeter Donald Byrd and performed alongside various jazz musicians, among them the distinguished tuba player Ray Draper. Military service came next, after which he established himself in New York City and contributed to albums by other artists, including Sun Ra's Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow and Sunny Murray's Homage to Africa. Sideman work alone did not satisfy him, so he took on roles as composer, teacher, and leader of his own groups, releasing several solo albums that later went out of print while also establishing his own imprint, Third World Records. Critics hold his late-1960s and early-1970s sessions in highest regard, particularly the 1967 album Freedom & Unity, captured the day after John Coltrane's funeral, and Communications from 1972. Open political statements drew official suspicion that he belonged to the Black Panthers, resulting in his exclusion from France. He later moved to Europe and died in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1989. Freedom & Unity received a reissue on the Atavistic label in 2001.
Albums
