Terell Stafford

Terell Stafford is one of the more recent members of the line of accomplished jazz musicians emanating from Philadelphia. By his own admission he didn’t start to take jazz seriously until 1988. However a Master of Music degree in classical trumpet from Rutgers University has endowed him with an enviable fluency and roundness of tone.

A chance musical encounter led him to join Horizon, Bobby Watson’s notable hardbopping quintet in 1990. The ensuing five years with Horizon added a practical reality to Stafford’s academic grounding, taking him on regular European tours that included the Montreux Jazz Festival (1992) followed by North Sea Jazz (1994). With the Watson group he has played New York’s Blue Note and Sweet Basil, appeared at Carnegie Hall and the Jazz Times Convention, and drawn favourable notices when appearing with Branford Marsalis on the NBC Jay Leno Show.

Terell recorded 3 times with Horizon, also with Stephen Scott, Lafayette Harris and with his friend and musical sibling saxophonist Tim Warfield, whom he invited on the rite-of-passage album for Candid, Time to Let Go, his first album as leader marking the moment he felt appropriate to strike out on his own. Here Stafford’s vigorous attack, liquid delivery and keen melodic sense are balanced by a poise and patience normally found in the playing of trumpet elder statesmen.

His second album, Centripetal Force - also on Candid - includes two Horizon alumni, Stephen Scott and drummer Victor Lewis, plus Warfield and talented guitarist Russell Malone. For it he adds vibes, French horn, guitar and percussion, moving his recording career into a new dimension with beautiful arrangements, original voicings and great swing: there are terrific versions of Skylark, Old Devil Moon, Somebody Bigger Than You Or I and Clifford Brown’s Daahoud.