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Few jazz musicians boast a resume as impressive as Chicago-born-and-bred trombonist Julian Priester. Sun Ra, Lionel Hampton, Johnny Griffin, Max Roach, Booker Little, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, Herbie Hancock, and Charlie Haden are among the bandleaders he’s worked under since the mid-50s, masterfully tailoring his exceptional skills to the needs of each. Over the decades he’s demonstrated an astonishing flexibility, whether playing straight-ahead charts or taking the music out. He was a key ingredient in defining the sound of Dave Holland’s Quintet, which has maintained the same sonic model for two subsequent decades. In the 70s, when he lived in San Francisco, he delivered his powerful take on post-Miles fusion on a pair of albums for ECM, including the classic Love, Love. But otherwise he’s made just a few records as a leader, which goes a long way toward explaining why he isn’t known better.
