Donald Byrd

Donald Byrd (1932-2013) was an American jazz trumpeter, composer and educator, born in Detroit. He came up in hard bop in the 1950s, recording widely for Blue Note, and in the 1970s moved into jazz-funk with Black Byrd, produced by Larry and Fonce Mizell, which was for many years the best-selling album in Blue Note's history. He taught at universities for much of his life and died in Dover, Delaware. Byrd joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in the mid-1950s as Clifford Brown's successor and later played with John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and Thelonious Monk.