Jimmy Giuffre, the adventurous clarinetist, composer and arranger whose 50-year journey through jazz led him from writing the Woody Herman anthem “Four Brothers" through minimalist, drummerless trios to striking experimental orchestral works, died on Thursday in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He was 86.
The cause was pneumonia, brought about by complications of Parkinson's disease, said his wife of 46 years, Juanita, who is his only survivor.
Among the half-dozen instruments he played, from bass flute to soprano saxophone, it was the clarinet that gave him a signature sound; it was a dark, velvety tone, centering in the lower register, pure but rarely forceful. But among the iconoclastic heroes of the late '50s in jazz, he was a serene oddity, changing his ideas as fast as he could record them.
His first breakthrough album, “Tangents in Jazz" (1955), did away with chordal instruments like piano or guitar two years before Sonny Rollins famously did so; his trios from 1956 to 1961 were without a drummer, prefiguring the quieter, classical-timbred music of vangardist jazz circles in the 1980s.
Little of this impressed more traditional audiences, however. What made Giuffre important to big-band aficionados was one composition, “Four Brothers," a big hit for Woody Herman's Second Herd in 1947. It established the characteristic Herman frontline sound of three tenor saxophones and a baritone saxophone, played fast, in harmony and without vibrato.
Giuffre was born on April 26, 1921, in Dallas. He started on clarinet at the age of 9. He attended what was then North Texas State Teachers College, where he earned a degree in music in 1942; upon graduation he joined the army for four years, playing with a quintet in mess halls at meal times, then moved to Los Angeles. After trying graduate work in music at the University of California in Los Angeles, he gave it up to study composition privately.
In the late 1940s, he became a freelance arranger and, in some cases, saxophonist, for a number of big bands. In the early 1950s, West Coast cool jazz began, and Giuffre took part. Usually playing tenor saxophone, he was in small groups led by Shorty Rogers, Shelly Manne and Howard Rumsey.
The cause was pneumonia, brought about by complications of Parkinson's disease, said his wife of 46 years, Juanita, who is his only survivor.
Among the half-dozen instruments he played, from bass flute to soprano saxophone, it was the clarinet that gave him a signature sound; it was a dark, velvety tone, centering in the lower register, pure but rarely forceful. But among the iconoclastic heroes of the late '50s in jazz, he was a serene oddity, changing his ideas as fast as he could record them.
His first breakthrough album, “Tangents in Jazz" (1955), did away with chordal instruments like piano or guitar two years before Sonny Rollins famously did so; his trios from 1956 to 1961 were without a drummer, prefiguring the quieter, classical-timbred music of vangardist jazz circles in the 1980s.
Little of this impressed more traditional audiences, however. What made Giuffre important to big-band aficionados was one composition, “Four Brothers," a big hit for Woody Herman's Second Herd in 1947. It established the characteristic Herman frontline sound of three tenor saxophones and a baritone saxophone, played fast, in harmony and without vibrato.
Giuffre was born on April 26, 1921, in Dallas. He started on clarinet at the age of 9. He attended what was then North Texas State Teachers College, where he earned a degree in music in 1942; upon graduation he joined the army for four years, playing with a quintet in mess halls at meal times, then moved to Los Angeles. After trying graduate work in music at the University of California in Los Angeles, he gave it up to study composition privately.
In the late 1940s, he became a freelance arranger and, in some cases, saxophonist, for a number of big bands. In the early 1950s, West Coast cool jazz began, and Giuffre took part. Usually playing tenor saxophone, he was in small groups led by Shorty Rogers, Shelly Manne and Howard Rumsey.
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