Joe Temperley died on May 11. He was 86. Joe was a charter member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and it wasn’t solely by seniority, experience, and chosen instrument that he brought a special gravitas to the band. The Scottish-born saxophonist was simply one of the greatest baritone players in jazz history, and he held the singular qualification of having succeeded Harry Carney in the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Of the many Ellingtonians who seemed irreplaceable, Carney topped the list, but he also made it a moot point; unlike Cootie Williams, Ben Webster, Barney Bigard, Johnny Hodges, and Lawrence Brown, he not only never left the Duke, he outlived him by several months. Thus, by the time he died on October 8, 1974, it was Duke’s son, Mercer Ellington, who invited Joe to join the band after he’d heard him play at Carney’s funeral service.
Temperley became well-versed in Ellington’s music while spending seven years (1958-1965) playing traditional jazz and swing with trumpeter Humphrey Littleton’s band in London. Joe was originally a tenor player, but shortly after he began playing baritone in 1958, he benefited directly from a meeting with Carney during one of the Ellington orchestra’s tours of England; when it caused him to report late for duty that night, Littleton excused it as an “educational” endeavor. Temperley made the leap to New York in 1965 and was relieved to find himself in demand; over the next decade he worked with Woody Herman, Buddy Rich, Duke Pearson, Thad Jones & Mel Lewis, Joe Henderson, and Clark Terry.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B9q3KgyYlc
The ten years he spent touring with the Ellington orchestra made him the perfect prospect for the baritone chair with Wynton Marsalis’s fledgling outfit. The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra was borne out of an Ellington tribute concert that Wynton put together in 1988, and since the band’s formation two years later, the Ellington canon has been such a prominent part of its repertoire that at times it seems like its raison-d’etre. But over the years, JLCO’s repertoire has become all-encompassing, and Temperley’s resonant sound, full tone, and superb facility animated a wide range of material, from original compositions by Marsalis, Ted Nash, and other band members, to canonical works by John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, and many others.
Still, in settings large and small, Joe was first and always a superior exponent of Ellingtonia. When I got word of his death, my first thought was to listen to the duo recording he made in 1995 with pianist Dave McKenna of one of Duke’s most elegiac works, “Sunset and the Mockingbird.” (Perhaps owing to its spare and sorrowful beauty, their version of “Sunset…” has been one of the most-requested songs by Jazz à la Mode listeners over the past twenty years.) I listened next to “The Single Petal of a Rose,” the other well-known movement from The Queen’s Suite. This performance by Joe on bass clarinet and Aaron Diehl on piano elicited several comments on YouTube, including one from a man who wrote, “I saw Temperley play this to his wife as an anniversary gift at Symphony Hall in Boston back in the spring. [It was] perhaps my single greatest musical experience ever.”
Jazz at Lincoln Center showcased Joe in a special concert last year. In his introductory remarks, Wynton lauded him as “the most soulful thing to come out of Scotland…The way he can come from where he came from and embrace just the very essence of jazz, an essence that we run from in our own country all the time…This man has embraced our music and he represents it with such dignity. The seriousness that he has about it, the depth of his understanding of it, his willingness to study it, his willingness to be about it, is inspirational.” In a eulogy issued last week, Marsalis said, “From the coal mines of Scotland, to clubs and concert halls all over the world. Joe’s journey was epochal, and he did it with integrity, style, piss and vinegar. We will miss him deeply and his spirit will forever live on in the sound of our orchestra.”
Joe’s widow Laurie Temperley also noted the distance he’d traveled in a lovely dedication she posted on Facebook. “Once he left Scotland, he never looked back. It was all about New York City. And, he achieved his dream. A wonderful marriage for 32 years that we shared, the music and musicians he had longed to play with, and our son, whose life he shared on a daily basis. He could never go back there. He often said, his family didn’t know or understand him or his music. He was right.”
Listening to Joe’s performance of John Coltrane’s “Alabama” leaves me contemplating just how far he’d come from “back there.” Trane composed the dirge to commemorate the fire-bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham that killed four young African American girls on September 15, 1963. The 85-year-old Temperley dedicates the piece to a recently-deceased friend, trumpet virtuoso Wilbur Wise, and his moving solo underscores a central truth of jazz as music that has long fostered the transcendence of racial and cultural boundaries.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIgXJQWkrX4
Temperley is also prominent in Swingin’ With Duke, a Great Performances special with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, a dance floor of jitterbuggers, archival footage of Ellington and Sidney Bechet, and Marsalis in conversation with Ed Bradlee.
Joe Temperley, R.I.P., September 20, 1929-May 11, 2016.