Curtis Fuller - born December 15, 1932 in Detroit, Michigan - was an acclaimed jazz trombonist who recorded a great many solo albums and collaborated with innumerable jazz artists since the 1950s. Orphaned as a child, he played in a band while serving in the US Army and joined fellow Detroit jazzman Yusef Lateef in a quintet based in New York from 1957. He featured as a sideman on many recordings with artists such as Sonny Clark, John Coltrane, Jimmy Smith, Red Garland and Wayne Shorter. He had stints with the Art Farmer-Benny Golson Jazztet and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and toured with bands including Count Basie's. He also had his own Curtis Fuller Jazztet. Celebrated albums include New Trombone (1957), Sliding Easy (1959), Cabin in the Sky (1962), Crankin (1971), Fire and Filigree (1978), Up Jumped Spring (2003), Down Home (2012), and In New Orleans (2018). In his later years, he continued to perform regularly and was on the faculty of the New York State Summer School of the Arts. Curtis Fuller died on May 8, 2021 at the age of 88.
