A respected hard bop trumpet player, Dizzy Reece was part of a wave of Jamaican musicians who made an impact on the European and American jazz scenes. The son of a silent film pianist. Alphonso Son Reece was born on January 5, 1931, in Kingston, Jamaica. He started training on the baritone saxophone but switched to the trumpet as a teenager. He relocated to Europe and spent time recording and gigging in London, England and Paris, France with various jazz ensembles. Dizzy Reece then began his recording career as a band leader in the mid-1950s and released several albums - A New Star... (1955), Progress Report (1957), London Jazz (1957) and the soundtrack to the 1958 British crime movie Nowhere to Go - before signing to Blue Note Records. His first album for the label, Blues in Trinity (1959), featured musical assistance from Donald Byrd on trumpet and Art Taylor on drums, and set the stage for Reece to move to America. After his relocation to the US, he quickly recorded three more albums as a leader for Blue Note – Star Bright (1959), Comin’ On! (1960), and Soundin’ Off (1960) – but following the release of Asia Minor (1962), he allowed himself to recede into a primarily sideman role in the following decades. He recorded and toured with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Hank Mobley, Dexter Gordon, and Clifford Jordan. Dizzy Reece returned as a leader with the album Possession, Exorcism, Peace (1977) and collaborated with Ted Curson on the 1978 album Blowin' Away (1978). In 1985, Dizzy Reece was part of the Paris Reunion Band and recorded the French Cooking album alongside fellow jazz greats Johnny Griffin, Slide Hampton, Woody Shaw, and Kenny Drew. Dizzy Reece retired from performing in the 1990s. In 1999, the archive album Comin' On was released and featured previously unreleased Blue Note session recordings from 1960. There have been several Dizzy Reece compilations released over the years including the five CD set The Complete Recordings 1954-62 (2013).
