Kenny Wheeler

Jazz trumpeter and flügelhornist Kenny Wheeler ranked among the most innovative players of his generation. Equipped with a rich, resonant tone and exceptional command of his instrument’s upper register, he moved with equal assurance between intense free-jazz ventures and introspective, melody-driven post-bop settings. Born in Toronto, Ontario, in 1930, Wheeler took up the trumpet at twelve. After training at the city’s Royal Conservatory, he relocated to London in 1952 and worked with various swing and dance ensembles. He performed with John Dankworth’s orchestra at the 1959 Newport Festival and stayed with the band until 1965. In 1966 he encountered free jazz and promptly joined John Stevens’ Spontaneous Music Ensemble, remaining for four years. Between 1969 and 1975 he also explored jazz-rock fusion in the Mike Gibbs Orchestra, while from 1969 to 1972 he participated in Tony Oxley’s sextet alongside Derek Bailey and Evan Parker. That connection led to an invitation, in 1970, to join pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach’s pioneering large ensemble the Globe Unity Orchestra, an affiliation he sustained for many subsequent seasons.

Throughout the first half of the 1970s Wheeler concentrated on projects with Anthony Braxton. He joined the ECM roster in 1975, releasing the acclaimed Gnu High and thereby launching a recognized solo career; the following year he departed Braxton’s group and entered the trio Azimuth. A sequence of distinguished ECM recordings ensued, among them 1977’s Deer Wan and 1983’s Double, Double You. In the same year he began a four-year tenure with the Dave Holland Quintet. Additional well-regarded sessions appeared during the 1990s, including the 1990 ECM releases Music for Large and Small Ensembles and The Widow in the Window, together with later albums on Justin Time and Soul Note. In the 2000s and 2010s he recorded several projects for CAM Jazz, among them 2008’s Other People with the Hugo Wolf String Quartet and 2011’s One of Many with Steve Swallow. Wheeler died on September 18, 2014 after a short illness. His last studio date, the Manfred Eicher-produced Songs for Quintet, appeared in 2015 on the date that would have marked his eighty-fifth birthday.