Fats Navarro Biography
Theodore Navarro, 24 September 1923, Key West, Florida, USA, d. 7 July 1950, New York City, New York, USA. After starting to learn the tenor saxophone and piano, Navarro opted for trumpet and by his mid-teens was playing professionally. In 1943 he joined the Andy Kirk band, working alongside Howard McGhee, and two years later was in the trumpet section of Billy Eckstine's bebop-orientated big band. He later settled in New York, where he played with leading beboppers such as McGhee, Kenny Clarke, Ernie Henry, Tadd Dameron, Bud Powell, Charlie Parker, Leo Parker, Sonny Rollins and Dizzy Gillespie, the last of whom he had replaced in the Eckstine band. Navarro also played with mainstreamers such as Coleman Hawkins and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis.
Most of these musical associations resulted in a legacy of fine recordings, with the Dameron sessions proving to be especially fruitful. During his short life Navarro displayed a precocious talent, his rich, full tone contrasting with the thin sound adopted by many of the other young bebop trumpeters of the day. In this respect his sound resembled that of an earlier generation of trumpeters who were considered somewhat passé by the late 40s. His last years were dogged by ill-health, exacerbated by an addiction to heroin, and he died in 1950. Despite his brief life, Navarro proved to be one of the most accessible of the early bop trumpeters and was an influence on another similarly short-lived talent, Clifford Brown.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze.
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