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Life and career

Curson was born in Philadelphia.³ He became interested in playing trumpet after watching a newspaper salesman play a silver trumpet.⁴ Curson's father, however, wanted him to play alto saxophone like Louis Jordan.⁵ When he was ten, he gained his first trumpet.⁶

He attended Granoff School of Music in Philadelphia.⁷ At the suggestion of Miles Davis, he moved to New York in 1956.⁸ He performed and recorded with Cecil Taylor in the late 1950s and early 1960s.⁹¹⁰ His composition "Tears for Dolphy" has been used in numerous films.¹¹¹²¹³ He was featured in a profile on composer Graham Collier in the 1985 Channel 4 documentary, Hoarded Dreams.¹⁴

He was a familiar face in Finland, having performed at the Pori Jazz festival every year since it began in 1966.¹⁵ In 2007, he performed at Finland's Independence Day Ball at the invitation of president Tarja Halonen.¹⁶

A longtime resident of Montclair, New Jersey,¹⁷ Curson died from a heart attack in the township on November 4, 2012.¹⁸

Discography

As leader

• Plenty of Horn (Old Town, 1961)
• Ted Curson Plays Fire Down Below (Prestige, 1963)
• Live at La'Tete De L'Art (Trans-World, 1962)
• Tears for Dolphy (Fontana, 1965)
• The New Thing & the Blue Thing (Atlantic, 1965)
• Urge (Fontana, 1966)
• Ode to Booker Ervin (Columbia, 1970)
• Pop Wine (Futura, 1971)
• Cattin' Curson (Marge, 1975)
• Blue Piccolo (Whynot, 1976)
• Jubilant Power (Inner City, 1976)
• Quicksand (Atlantic, 1977)
• Flip Top (Arista/Freedom, 1977)
• Fireball (Trio, 1979)
• Blowin' Away with Dizzy Reece (Interplay, 1978)
• The Trio (Interplay, 1979)
• I Heard Mingus (Trio, 1980)
• Snake Johnson (Chiaroscuro, 1981)
• Traveling On (Evidence, 1997)

As sideman

With Bill Barron

• The Tenor Stylings of Bill Barron (Savoy, 1961)
• Modern Windows (Savoy, 1962)
• Now, Hear This! (Audio Fidelity, 1964)

With Charles Mingus

• Mingus (Candid, 1961)
• Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus (Candid, 1961)
• Mingus Revisited (Limelight, 1965)
• Mingus at Antibes (Atlantic, 1976)

With Cecil Taylor

• Love for Sale (United Artists, 1959)
• Into the Hot (Impulse!, 1962)
• In Transition (Blue Note, 1975)
• The New Breed (ABC Impulse!, 1978) (reissue of tracks from Into the Hot)

With others

• Pepper Adams, California Cookin' (Interplay, 1991)
• Ran Blake, Film Noir (Arista Novus, 1980)
• Nick Brignola, Baritone Madness (Bee Hive, 1978)
• Bill Dixon & Archie Shepp, Bill Dixon 7-tette/Archie Shepp and the New York Contemporary 5 (Savoy, 1964)
• Graham Collier, Hoarded Dreams (Cuneiform, 2007)
• Eric Dolphy, Candid, Dolphy (Candid, 1989)
• Eric Dolphy, Outward Bound (Poll Winners, 2011)
• Gil Evans, Into The Hot (Impulse!, 1962)
• Andrew Hill, Spiral (Arista/Freedom, 1975)
• Karin Krog, Joy (Meantime, 2008)
• Teo Macero, Impressions of Charles Mingus (Palo Alto, 1983)
• Misha Mengelberg & Piet Noordijk, Journey (MCN, 2011)
• Mark Murphy, Living Room (Muse, 1986)
• Sal Nistico, Neo/Nistico (Bee Hive, 1978)
• Archie Shepp, Fire Music (Impulse!, 1965)
• Archie Shepp, Quartet (FreeFactory, 2009)
• Andrzej Trzaskowski, Seant (1966)

External links

• Ted Curson at AllMusic

References

1. Wynn, Ron (1994). Ron Wynn (ed.). All Music Guide to Jazz. Allmusic. M. Erlewine, V. Bogdanov. San Francisco: Miller Freeman Books. p. 183. ISBN 0-87930-308-5. 0-87930-308-5 ↩

2. Gustafsson, Sari (2012-11-04). "Pori Jazzin legenda Ted Curson kuoli". Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish). Lehtikuva. http://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/Pori+Jazzin+legenda+Ted+Curson+kuoli/a1305612462721 ↩

3. Wynn, Ron (1994). Ron Wynn (ed.). All Music Guide to Jazz. Allmusic. M. Erlewine, V. Bogdanov. San Francisco: Miller Freeman Books. p. 183. ISBN 0-87930-308-5. 0-87930-308-5 ↩

4. Allen, Clifford (2005-06-02). "Ted Curson: Atypical Ted". Allaboutjazz.com. All About Jazz. Retrieved 2007-08-02. http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=17756 ↩

5. Allen, Clifford (2005-06-02). "Ted Curson: Atypical Ted". Allaboutjazz.com. All About Jazz. Retrieved 2007-08-02. http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=17756 ↩

6. Allen, Clifford (2005-06-02). "Ted Curson: Atypical Ted". Allaboutjazz.com. All About Jazz. Retrieved 2007-08-02. http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=17756 ↩

7. Biography at AllMusic (web version) https://www.allmusic.com/artist/p6356 ↩

8. Wynn, Ron (1994). Ron Wynn (ed.). All Music Guide to Jazz. Allmusic. M. Erlewine, V. Bogdanov. San Francisco: Miller Freeman Books. p. 183. ISBN 0-87930-308-5. 0-87930-308-5 ↩

9. Wynn, Ron (1994). Ron Wynn (ed.). All Music Guide to Jazz. Allmusic. M. Erlewine, V. Bogdanov. San Francisco: Miller Freeman Books. p. 183. ISBN 0-87930-308-5. 0-87930-308-5 ↩

10. Cook, Richard; Brian Morton (2006) [1992]. The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (Eighth ed.). New York: Penguin. p. 1267. ISBN 0-14-102327-9. 0-14-102327-9 ↩

11. "Ted Curson". ATPFestival.com. All Tomorrow's Parties. 2005. Retrieved 2007-07-25. http://www.atpfestival.com/archive/line_up_view.php?archive=16&view=459 ↩

12. Gilchrist, Todd (2006-03-20). "Teorema". IGN.com. IGN Entertainment, Inc. Retrieved 2007-07-25. http://dvd.ign.com/articles/697/697167p1.html ↩

13. Teorema at IMDb https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063678/ ↩

14. "Hoarded Dreams". Bright-thoughts.co.uk. Retrieved August 1, 2024. https://www.bright-thoughts.co.uk/hoarded-dreams.html ↩

15. Gustafsson, Sari (2012-11-04). "Pori Jazzin legenda Ted Curson kuoli". Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish). Lehtikuva. http://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/Pori+Jazzin+legenda+Ted+Curson+kuoli/a1305612462721 ↩

16. "The President's Independence Day Reception on 6 December 2007". Office of the President of the Republic of Finland. Archived from the original on 2007-06-26. Retrieved 2009-03-24. https://archive.today/20070626124419/http://www.presidentti.fi/netcomm/news/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=67104&intSubArtID=26960 ↩

17. "The State of Jazz: Meet 40 More Jersey Greats", The Star-Ledger, September 28, 2003, backed up by the Internet Archive as of September 27, 2008. Accessed September 15, 2017. "Ted Curson -- Long-time Montclair resident Curson is a bold trumpeter who has performed and/or recorded with Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, Andrew Hill, Cecil Taylor and the Spirit of Life Ensemble." https://web.archive.org/web/20080927062323/http://www.nj.com/greatday/stories/more.html ↩

18. Gustafsson, Sari (2012-11-04). "Pori Jazzin legenda Ted Curson kuoli". Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish). Lehtikuva. http://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/Pori+Jazzin+legenda+Ted+Curson+kuoli/a1305612462721 ↩