Biography
Dud Bascomb occupies a distinctive niche in jazz history. Serving as one of two trumpet soloists in the Erskine Hawkins Orchestra, with the leader himself occupying the remaining chair, he saw several of his well-known improvisations routinely misattributed to Hawkins during that period. The youngest of ten siblings and younger brother of tenor saxophonist Paul Bascomb, he would later become father to bassist Dud Bascomb, Jr. After beginning on piano he soon shifted to trumpet. While attending Alabama State Teacher's School he met Erskine Hawkins in 1932, when the latter directed the Bama State Collegians. Both Bascomb brothers joined the group on its 1934 move to New York, and Dud stayed with Hawkins until 1944. Hawkins handled the high-note and more theatrical passages, yet Bascomb supplied most of the substantive jazz solos, among them those on “Tuxedo Junction” and “Gin Mill Special.” In 1944 he left to support his brother’s struggling septet, which eventually grew into a big band. A few months with Duke Ellington’s Orchestra followed in 1947, though he was seldom featured. The 1950s found him freelancing, including a stretch of more than three years leading his own quintet at Tyle’s Chicken Shack in New Jersey, where Lou Donaldson was among the sidemen. Though his profile remained modest, steady work continued through the 1960s, encompassing three tours of Japan with Sam Taylor, European engagements with Buddy Tate, and occasional leadership of his own ensembles. Across the years he recorded a handful of standalone sessions—four titles each for Deluxe, Alert, Sonora, and True-Blue in the mid-1940s—plus one album for Savoy that was taped in 1959–1960 but largely withheld until 1986 despite its quality.