6 March 1942, Jacksonville, Florida, USA. Tolliver was set on the road to music by his grandmother who gave him a cornet when he was eight years old. He was raised and educated in New York and also studied at Howard University, Washington DC, majoring in pharmacy. By the time he began playing trumpet as a full-time professional he was already committed to bop. During the 60s he worked extensively with several leading bop musicians of the time including Jackie McLean, with whom he recorded the 1964 Blue Note Records session It’s Time, Art Blakey and Sonny Rollins. He spent the second half of the decade on the west coast playing with Gerald Wilson, in whose band he met Roy Ayers. He recorded with both Wilson and Ayers as leaders and he was a member of the Max Roach Quintet, recording the 1968 Atlantic Records session Members Don’t Get Weary. At the end of the 60s he was a founder member of the cooperative quartet, Music, Inc. Another member of this band was Stanley Cowell with whom Tolliver formed a record company, Strata-East.
Although his business activities were time-consuming, Tolliver continued to play, touring Europe and the far east, and to compose. A melodic yet forceful player with flowing ideas and an endless capacity for invention, Tolliver’s international reputation is not as great as his talent merits.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze.
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6 March 1942, Jacksonville, Florida, USA. Tolliver was set on the road to music by his grandmother who gave him a cornet when he was eight years old. He was raised and educated in New York and also studied at Howard University, Washington DC, majoring in pharmacy. By the time he began playing trumpet as a full-time professional he was already committed to bop. During the 60s he worked extensively with several leading bop musicians of the time including Jackie McLean, with whom he recorded the 1964 Blue Note Records session It’s Time, Art Blakey and Sonny Rollins. He spent the second half of the decade on the west coast playing with Gerald Wilson, in whose band he met Roy Ayers. He recorded with both Wilson and Ayers as leaders and he was a member of the Max Roach Quintet, recording the 1968 Atlantic Records session Members Don’t Get Weary. At the end of the 60s he was a founder member of the cooperative quartet, Music, Inc. Another member of this band was Stanley Cowell with whom Tolliver formed a record company, Strata-East.