Although he didn't record under his own name until 1998, Olu Dara enjoyed a reputation as one of the jazz avant-garde's leading trumpeters from the mid-'70s on. Early-'80s records and performances with <a href="spotify:artist:00SOiqZ0YGY2JhjSPxZMZg">the David Murray Octet</a> and the Henry Threadgill Sextet revealed Dara to be a daring, roots-bound soloist, with a modern imagination and a big burnished tone in the style of <a href="spotify:artist:4BTW4B783hmugcZa676VuD">Louis Armstrong</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:4RvXA7BDgqNgGDjsSSJnPc">Roy Eldridge</a>. Dara was born Charles Jones. He moved to New York in 1963, but did not perform publicly until the early '70s, when he became a part of the city's loft jazz culture. By that time, he had changed his name to the Yoruba Olu Dara. Besides his work with <a href="spotify:artist:7d7q5Y1p2QWS4QRAhTQR5E">Murray</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:0bSP8obSwEpc8XEOE7qc63">Threadgill</a>, Dara also played with <a href="spotify:artist:0CwLl45yTdzGtaA0izZ4Y0">Hamiet Bluiett</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:1f1FGHLhOigcRYNI5pcHuh">James "Blood" Ulmer</a>, and <a href="spotify:artist:0zdSGWAAxDPCaU0Xa3FTQP">Don Pullen</a>, among others. Dara was an intermittent presence on the jazz scene in the '80s and '90s, occasionally leading his Okra Orchestra and Natchezsippi Dance Band. In 1985, he recorded with <a href="spotify:artist:0zdSGWAAxDPCaU0Xa3FTQP">Pullen</a> and in 1987, with saxophonist <a href="spotify:artist:5khQcscXYRDYvMM804iomp">Charles Brackeen</a>; in the '90s he worked with vocalist <a href="spotify:artist:6TZ5t4kclsmGWHqb3mGyha">Cassandra Wilson</a>, playing on her Blue Note album, Blue Light 'Til Dawn. Not much else was heard from him -- from a jazz perspective, anyway -- until 1998, when Atlantic released In the World: From Natchez to New York, the first album released under Dara's name. The record was only tangentially related to his free jazz work. The music drew upon country-blues and African-American folk traditions. In addition to playing trumpet and cornet, Dara composed all of the tunes, sung, and accompanied himself on guitar. Atlantic released Dara's follow-up, entitled Neighborhoods, in early 2001. ~ Chris Kelsey, Rovi
