Jack Walrath

A thoughtful and frequently exciting trumpeter who also arranges with skill, Jack Walrath built his reputation through consistent work on high-caliber recording dates. He first picked up the trumpet at age nine and later attended Berklee during the middle and final years of the 1960s, collaborating with fellow students while accompanying R&B singers. After relocating to the West Coast in 1969, he jointly directed the group Change alongside Gary Peacock and the ensemble Revival with Glenn Ferris, and he spent a year on the road with Ray Charles. In the early 1970s Walrath settled in New York, performing with various Latin ensembles before joining Charles Mingus from 1974 to 1979, a period that brought him wider notice. He supplied arrangements and orchestrations for Mingus’s last studio sessions. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s he fronted his own groups, traveled across Europe with Dannie Richmond and with the British band Spirit Level, appeared in Charlie Persip’s Superband and with Richard Abrams, and sustained Mingus’s repertoire as a member of Mingus Dynasty. As a leader, Jack Walrath has documented his work on Gatemouth, Stash, SteepleChase, Red, Muse, Spotlite, Blue Note, and Mapleshade, continuing to develop his craft over time.