Don Byron stands out as a clarinetist and saxophonist whose work fuses post-bop, classic jazz, and klezmer idioms, earning him respect after he arrived on the New York circuit during the 1980s. Early associations with forward-thinking players such as David Murray, Hamiet Bluiett, and Reggie Workman paved the way for his own recordings, among them the 1993 release Plays the Music of Mickey Katz, which examined the repertoire of the famed Jewish clarinetist; 1996’s Bug Music, centered on the compositions of John Kirby and Raymond Scott; and 2004’s Ivey-Divey, shaped by Lester Young’s style and containing the Grammy-nominated selection “I Want to Be Happy.” Though Byron remains best known for updating swing and klezmer traditions, he has also examined Afro-Cuban forms on 2001’s Music for Six Musicians, vintage R&B on 2006’s Do the Boomerang: The Music of Junior Walker, and gospel on 2012’s Love, Peace and Soul. Beyond his discography he has written music for film and television, served as jazz director at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and held teaching positions at Metropolitan State University of Denver, The University at Albany, and M.I.T.
Born in the Bronx in 1958, Byron was raised in a working-class household where his father, a mail carrier, performed on bass in calypso ensembles and his mother played piano. Childhood asthma prompted doctors to recommend the clarinet as a means of strengthening his lungs, while family outings to ballet and orchestral concerts, alongside early encounters with recordings by Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Henderson, and Artie Shaw, shaped his musical outlook. Growing up in a predominantly Jewish area also fostered an affinity for klezmer, particularly the clarinet work and comedic recordings of Mickey Katz. During his teenage years he received private instruction from Juilliard instructor Joe Allard, then continued his training at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, studying with George Russell and performing with Hankus Netsky in the Klezmer Conservatory Band. After completing his studies in the early 1980s he moved to New York City, where he performed with experimental musicians including Hamiet Bluiett, David Murray, and Reggie Workman, and appeared on Craig Harris’s 1986 album Shelter.
His debut as a leader came with 1992’s Tuskegee Experiments, an expansive statement that merged traditional swing vocabulary with harmonically advanced improvisation and featured bassist Reggie Workman, pianist Joe Berkovitz, guitarist Bill Frisell, bassist Lonnie Plaxico, drummer Ralph Peterson, Jr., pianist Edsel Gomez, and additional contributors. The following year brought the klezmer-oriented Don Byron Plays the Music of Mickey Katz, which earned him the DownBeat Critics Poll award for clarinet. Latin rhythms informed 1995’s Music for Six Musicians, again with pianist Gomez alongside cornetist Graham Haynes and returning participants Frisell, Plaxico, and Peterson.
After issuing a live recording from the Knitting Factory, Byron released 1996’s Bug Music, paying tribute to the brisk swing compositions of Raymond Scott, John Kirby, and Duke Ellington. He subsequently joined Blue Note, delivering the well-received Nu Blaxploitation in 1998 and Romance with the Unseen in 1999. That same year he created and performed a score for the 1927 silent film Scar of Shame at the request of New York’s American Museum of the Moving Image. The classically inclined A Fine Line: Arias and Lieder appeared on the label in 2000, followed in 2001 by You Are #6: More Music for Six Musicians. Throughout the decade he added academic duties at The University at Albany and M.I.T., later extending his faculty work to Metropolitan State University of Denver.
In 2004 Byron collaborated with pianist Jason Moran, drummer Jack DeJohnette, trumpeter Ralph Alessi, and bassist Plaxico on Ivey-Divey, drawing from Lester Young’s 1946 trio sessions and including a version of “I Want to Be Happy” that brought the clarinetist his first Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Jazz Solo. Two years afterward he explored soul repertoire on Do the Boomerang: The Music of Junior Walker. Another cross-genre project, Love, Peace and Soul, surfaced on Savoy and centered on classic gospel material, much of it composed by Thomas A. Dorsey. In 2018 he reunited with pianist Aruán Ortiz for Random Dances and (A)Tonalities.
