Jon Eardley: Horn A-Plenty

June 15, 2023

Jon Eardley: Horn A-Plenty

Yesterday I posted on a new Chet Baker streaming album recorded in May 1981 with flugelhornist Jon Eardley and alto saxophonist Bob Mover. Many of you asked about Eardley, so today, let's give a look and listen. His pointed, crisp style and moody feel on ballads was favored by a long list of top jazz leaders, most notably Gerry Mulligan, who featured him in his quartet and sextet in the mid-1950s.

Eardley was born in Altoona, Pa., in 1928. Inspired by his father, a trumpeter who had toured with Paul Whiteman's orchestra, Jon Eardley began playing the horn at age 11. In an interview that Eardley gave British journalist Les Thomkins and can be found posted at Steven Cerra's Jazz Profiles here, his father sat in the band next to cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, who, Eardley said, visited their house and played with him on his knee. Or so Eardley was told. A fan of recordings by Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Red Nichols and His Five Pennies, Eardley took the trumpet and jazz seriously, with his father providing the training and encouragement.

In the mid-1940s, Eardley's ambitions to become a jazz player were put on hold when he was inducted into the military in 1946 and played in a U.S. Air Force band. Discharged in 1949, Eardley was first recorded playing on a private recording with Charlie Parker in New York in 1950. Then he formed a quartet, played with Bud Powell with the Joe Timer Orchestra and with Phil Woods's New Jazz Quintet recording in 1954. In 1954, he joined the newly formed Gerry Mulligan Quartet.

Eardley's first leadership date came in December 1954, when he recorded four tracks for Bob Weinstock's New Jazz label on a 10-inch album entitled From Hollywood to New York. In 1955, he led a quintet on a Prestige 10-incher entitled Hey There, Jon Eardley! Mulligan Sextet sessions followed, and Eardley recorded again as a leader for Prestige on a 12-inch LP as the Jon Eardley Seven in 1956.

In 1963, he moved to Belgium and toured and recorded in Europe before moving to Cologne, Germany, in 1969, where he continued to perform and record. Why exactly he decided to move to Europe is unclear. Later albums included On the Way to the Sky, by Bob Brookmeyer and the WDR Band Cologne, Last Recordings with Mel Lewis and the WDR Big Band and Carmen McRae's Dream of Life.

Eardley's last known recordings were in February and March 1991. He died in April 1991.

Here are 10 of my favorite tracks by Eardley:

Here's Eardley with Phil Woods in 1954 playing Pot Pie...

Here's Eardley with the Gerry Mulligan Quartet in 1954 playing Blues for Tiny...

Here's Eardley playing Late Leader in 1954...

Here's Eardley leading on Sid's Delight, with J.R. Monterose (ts), George Syran (p), Teddy Kotick (b) and Nick Stabulas (d) in 1955...

Here's Eardley playing Phil Woods's Eard's Word in 1956, with Milt Gold (tb), Woods (as), Zoot Sims (ts), George Syran (p), Teddy Kotick (b) and Nick Stabulas (d)...

Here's Eardley with Zoot Sims (ts), Henri Renaud (p), Benoit Quersin (b) and Charles Saudrais (d) in 1956 playing Everything I Love...

Here's the Gerry Mulligan Sextet playing Westwood Walk in 1956, with Eardley (tp), Bob Brookmeyer (v-tb), Zoot Sims (ts), Mulligan (bar), Bill Crow (b) and Dave Bailey (d)...

Here's a band led by Eardley playing Suspension Act, from an album called Jazz From the States, recorded in the Netherlands in the late 1960s...