If we’re evaluating jazz musicians on tone alone, Art Farmer was perhaps the prettiest trumpeter and flugelhornist to emerge in the 1950s.
Distinguished by a warm, orchestral sound on his horn, Farmer was equally lyrical and spry as a composer and sideman. Virtually everything he played was elegantly seductive and serious, and touches your heart. If all he recorded was Work of Art in 1953, Wisteria and Soft Shoe in ’54 and Farmer’s Market in ’56 (his second recording of the song), he’d be remarkable.
Here are five video clips of Art Farmer in action on the flugelhorn in the 1960s:
Art Farmer in 1964 with guitarist Jim Hall…
Farmer and Jim in 1964 on Ralph J. Gleason’s Jazz Casual…
Farmer soloing in the Netherlands in 1966 along with alto saxophonist Lee Konitz, trombonist Ake Persson and a group assembled by Oliver Nelson…
Farmer in Norway in 1968…
Farmer in Paris in 1969…
Wisteria…
Soft Shoe with Sonny Rollins…
Farmer’s Market…
Farmer’s original recording of Farmer’s Market with tenor saxophonist Wardell Gray in 1952…
Annie Ross’s vocalese of Farmer’s Market in 1952…
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