Sonny Bradshaw
| Sonny Bradshaw | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Cecil Bradshaw |
| Born |
28 March 1926 Kingston, Jamaica |
| Died | 10 October 2009 (aged 83) London, England |
| Genres | Jazz, reggae |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, bandleader, broadcaster, promoter |
| Instruments | Trumpet, piano, flügelhorn, clarinet, trombone, saxophone |
| Years active | Late 1940s – 2009 |
| Associated acts | The Sonny Bradshaw Seven Jamaican Big Band |
Cecil "Sonny" Bradshaw CD (28 March 1926 – 10 October 2009), known as the "dean of Jamaican music", and the "musician's musician", was a Jamaican bandleader, trumpeter, broadcaster, and promoter who was a major figure in Jamaican music for more than sixty years.
Bradshaw was born in Kingston, the only child of Edgar and Gladys Bradshaw, until the birth of his sister Marion twenty years later. He attended Central Branch Conservatorium and then Kingston Technical High School, and was a regular reader of Popular Mechanics magazine, which led to him building his own radio, allowing him to listen to music from Cuba and the United States. His first job after leaving school was at Montague's Musique on Tower Street, and he taught himself to read music and play the trumpet. His first professional work as a musician came in the late 1940s in Eric Deans' orchestra. He left in 1950 to form the Sonny Bradshaw Seven (he claimed seven was his lucky number), which became renowned for recreating the sound of a 14-piece orchestra with only seven musicians, and later also led the Jamaican Big Band (aka the All Stars Band), which included some of Jamaica's top musicians including Joe Harriott, Dizzy Reece, Ernest Ranglin, "Little G" McNair, Dwight Pinkney, and Monty Alexander. The band also backed the visiting Sarah Vaughan in 1956, the first time a Jamaican band had backed a visiting artist. Other artists that Bradshaw's band backed included Johnny Mathis, Lou Rawls, Johnnie Ray, Brook Benton, and Sam Cooke. Bradshaw was best known as a trumpeter, but played a variety of instruments including piano, flügelhorn, clarinet, trombone, and saxophone.
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