Miles Donahue

New Englander Miles Donahue has long established himself as a seasoned horn player with command of the trumpet along with the tenor and soprano saxophone. Though the hard bop and post-bop artist has occasionally turned to piano, his primary focus remains on wind instruments. Whether on trumpet or saxophone, he conveys a restrained power and maintains a swinging pulse that tends toward introspective, reflective, and lyrical expression. A longtime Boston resident, Donahue set aside his jazz ambitions for family responsibilities until the late 1980s, after which he devoted himself to near-constant performance.

Born August 19, 1944, in Watertown, MA, he took up the trumpet at age ten, spurred in part by his father, Babe Donahue, a local trumpeter and arranger whose style reflected a strong Roy Eldridge influence. During the 1960s he attended Lowell State College in Lowell, MA, where exposure to Boston tenor saxophonist Charlie Mariano—one of his preferred players—prompted him to add saxophone study alongside continued work on piano. While enrolled he also performed trumpet in a soul band.

After leaving college he married young and raised two children. To support his family he continued working as a musician, yet jazz was not his sole pursuit. Believing rhythm sections enjoyed steadier employment than horn players, he concentrated on piano alone for roughly five years and sustained himself through non-jazz engagements. Even during that interval he maintained a jazz connection by composing the entire repertoire for a jazz album by flutist Paige Brook, then a member of the New York Philharmonic.

By the mid-1980s Donahue recognized his desire to center his work on jazz, an ambition reinforced by tenor saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi, a Watertown acquaintance from earlier years. Once he resumed trumpet and saxophone performance, he secured a series of jazz engagements in and around Boston, and by approximately 1988 he was actively advancing a full-time jazz career.

Early in the 1990s he joined the ranks of American jazz musicians whose initial recordings appeared on independent European labels. His debut album as a leader, Double Dribble, captured a 1992 concert and was issued by the Dutch label Timeless Records. In 1993 he recorded The Good Listener for the Italian company RAM Records; that project, which featured Bergonzi prominently, marked his first studio album and second release overall. RAM followed with Simple Pleasures in 1999. In 2003 four albums of standards appeared simultaneously on his own Amerigo imprint.