1. John D'earth's father had survived the Pacific theater of World War II and was "obsessed" with jazz.
19 Facts About John D'earth
1. 2.
John D'earth revealed to me mysteries of art and music that are priceless.
3.
John D'earth would sit with his two-year-old son, teaching him to play drum brushes on a metal tray.
4.
John D'earth's father was "drawn to the complexities of be-bop" with its raw rhythms and stylings.
5.
The John D'earth family lived in a house from the 1690s that had been The Littlefield Tavern during the Colonial era.
6.
John D'earth's parents divorced when he was eight, around the time he got his first trumpet.
7.
John D'earth immediately walked out into the yard and played it to the trees, discovering scales on his own.
8.
Jazz instruction wasn't so easy to find in the early 1960s, but John D'earth crossed paths with Henry "Boots" Mussulli, who was a veteran of the big band days.
9.
John D'earth was part of a group of jazz instructors who helped form Berklee College of Music.
10.
John D'earth met Robert Jospe, a jazz drummer who would later relocate to Charlottesville and become a UVA music instructor, in 1967 at The Cambridge School of Weston, a preparatory high school near Boston.
11.
John D'earth attended Harvard University briefly only to drop out and pursue his musical career.
12.
John D'earth serves as Director of Jazz Performance at the University of Virginia and was at one point the jazz artist in residence at Virginia Commonwealth University.
13.
John D'earth was music teacher at The Tandem School in Charlottesville from the early to mid-1980s.
14.
John D'earth regularly plays at Miller's Downtown on the Charlottesville pedestrian mall with other musicians including JC Kuhl, Pete Spaar, Jamal Millner, DJ Harrison, Pureum Jin, Brian Caputo, Wells Hanley, Adam Larrabee, Brian Jones, and many others.
15.
John D'earth makes frequent appearances with younger up-and-coming players as well as older mainstay musicians alike in the Richmond, Virginia, area.
16.
John D'earth is known for his work with musicians such as Miles Davis, Buddy Rich, Dave Matthews Band, and Emily Remler.
17.
John D'earth has recorded for Vanguard Records, ENJA Records, DoubleTime Jazz, and his own Cosmology label.
18.
John D'earth appeared regularly with his vocalist wife Dawn Thompson, who died August 31,2017, after surviving nine years with brain cancer.
19.
John D'earth was born in Alexandria, Virginia, on October 9,1946.