36 Facts About Dupree Bolton

Dupree Bolton was a jazz trumpeter from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Dupree Bolton is known primarily for his appearance as a backing musician on two hard bop jazz albums, the first led by Harold Land in 1959, and the second led by Curtis Amy in 1963.

Dupree Bolton played with relatively few jazz musicians during his musical prime, mainly in the Los Angeles area and inside US prisons including San Quentin and Soledad.

Dupree Bolton was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on 3 March 1929 as the eldest of his parents' four children.

Dupree Bolton's father was a part-time professional violinist who played other stringed instruments.

Dupree Bolton started playing violin at age 5 at the behest of his father, but he soon moved to the trumpet and progressed quickly on the instrument.

In 1941, Dupree Bolton's family moved to Southern California so that Dupree Bolton's father could work in the defense industry, which was expanding because of World War II.

Dupree Bolton was not the only child in the family to pursue music professionally.

In 1944, Dupree Bolton left home at age 14 against his parents wishes to join Jay McShann's band.

Dupree Bolton was an advanced musician for his age, and was given solo features by McShann.

The band members, including Dupree Bolton, were stranded away from home with no source of income.

Dupree Bolton went to New York City after the McShann band broke up.

In 1975, an LP featuring live recordings of the Johnson band was released, and Dupree Bolton can be heard as a 16-year-old soloing on a riff tune entitled "Traffic Jam".

Dupree Bolton left the Johnson band between December 1945 and January 1946 to join the trumpet section of the Benny Carter band.

Dupree Bolton made some studio recordings as a member of Carter's trumpet section, but he was not a featured soloist.

In 1947, one day before his 17th birthday, Dupree Bolton was arrested for marijuana possession during a search of his hotel room conducted by police officers who were investigating Dupree Bolton and a bandmate with whom he shared the room.

Dupree Bolton was sent to Federal Medical Center in Lexington, Kentucky, which was operating as a combination of drug treatment center and prison, with some patients living at the institution voluntarily, and others, like Dupree Bolton, confined involuntarily because of federal drug convictions.

Dupree Bolton still struggled with heroin addiction, and was arrested again in 1951 and sent to Soledad state prison.

In 1959, Dupree Bolton was released and was able to briefly resume his music career in Los Angeles.

In that same interview, Dupree Bolton said he was able to make musical progress while incarcerated, and described his practice routine while serving the 4-year prison sentence at Soledad that began in 1951:.

In 1959, Dupree Bolton was released from the Terminal Island prison and was able to play live in jazz clubs in the Los Angeles area after being mostly off the scene for 12 years.

Dupree Bolton quickly gained a reputation as a major talent among local jazz musicians, most of whom had not seen him during his earlier periods of professional musical activity.

Dupree Bolton told Gioia in an initially unpublished 1989 interview that on the few occasions in the past when he was asked by journalists or researchers about his life story, he was reluctant to give details:.

Shortly after The Fox was recorded, Dupree Bolton was again arrested and convicted, and he began serving the sentence in San Quentin State Prison described above.

Dupree Bolton recorded two pieces in 1963 for a Pacific Jazz session led by alto sax player Earl Anderza, who Dupree Bolton had met in San Quentin.

Dupree Bolton was a technically gifted player in the bebop idiom.

Dupree Bolton told Ted Gioia that one of his biggest musical inspirations was Fats Navarro, who he was able to see live when he lived in New York City in the mid-1940s.

Jazz writers have compared Dupree Bolton's playing to Dizzy Gillespie, and Clifford Brown.

Dupree Bolton's tone was large and his playing was firmly in the extroverted tradition of bebop and hard bop.

Dupree Bolton was adept at fast tempos, which were favored by bebop pioneers like Navarro, Charlie Parker, and Max Roach.

Writers have noted that Dupree Bolton's art continued to evolve in the 1950s and early 1960s, even when he was incarcerated.

Dupree Bolton, who returned to prison in 1963, again for forgery and drug-related crimes, spent most of the next 20 years serving prison sentences.

Dupree Bolton enrolled in a government supervised methadone treatment program to control his drug addiction.

Dupree Bolton's approach was tentative as he felt his way around the new horn he had borrowed for the occasion.

Dupree Bolton should be remembered, I felt, for the greatness of his youthful achievements, not the limitations of his later efforts.

Dupree Bolton died from cardiac arrest in 1993, according to his Alameda County death certificate.