With his trumpet, Terell Stafford steps fearlessly into the fray

The Artistry of… Terell Stafford

I love it when accolades come from colleagues and friends of the art — recognition by peers, and especially when peer is mixed with elder or someone senior in experience and time spent. About Terell Stafford, McCoy Tyner said this: One of the great players of our time, a fabulous trumpet player.”

Stafford’s playing is straight-ahead. Fearless, it steps right into the fray, right into the circle, and like a skilled schoolyard Double Dutcher, he is right in time, every time.

He started playing the trumpet when he was in his early teens studying classical music. A meeting with Wynton Marsalis turned him on fully to pursuing defining himself as a jazz artist. Marsalis added him to the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

He is an educator, too, and his students are the luckiest to be so mentored and guided in the learning experiences. He has taught at Juilliard in New York. He leads when he plays and he leads as he teaches; he is director of jazz studies and chair of instrumental studies at Philadelphia’s Temple University, leads his own band, the Terell Stafford Quintet, and is managing and artistic director of one of Philadelphia’s great big bands, the Jazz Orchestra of Philadelphia.

Leading and teaching, he plays like he leads. In step, in time and, like McCoy said, one of the great players of our time.