Past Events
October 11, 2007 - Grachan Moncur III

Guest of Harlem Speaks on October 11th Grachan Moncur III was born June 3, 1937 in Harlem’s Sydenham Hospital. He is the son of jazz bassist Grachan Moncur II and the nephew of jazz saxophonist Al Cooper, leader of the Savoy Sultans, whom had a residency at the Savoy Ballroom for about nine years and played opposite the most famous bands in jazz.

His father drove for the band, and also played tuba and bass. Cooper paid Moncur’s father less than other band members, which his father resented. But Cooper was looking out for his father—he gave the naturally-talented bassist the funds he had been holding back as savings, and Grachan’s father was able to buy his family a home with the proceeds.

His father played bass with Chu Berry and Teddy Wilson, and was for a long time “the best bass player I had ever played with,” said Moncur III. “But other bass players knew more changes, and he always wanted me to be well trained as a musician.”

His father taught him musical fundamentals, after bringing home a silver trombone that he bought with a pawn ticket. The horn entranced the son, and he tried to play it. “Dad was annoyed at first, and would say, ‘you gotta get in them books.” His father hooked him up with a music teacher at the Don Kirschner School of Music in Newark. “My teacher knew I had talent, and he made me perfect the B flat on the Bb tenor trombone with long tones, working on my embouchure, and decrescendos.”

That foundation of basics served him extremely well throughout his career. “Anything is possible if you know what you’re doing. It’s good to know the logic of changes,” said one of jazz most respected trombonists associated with free jazz. “But as you grow musically, you can throw all of that out and just express yourself and do your thing.”

He was raised in Newark, New Jersey, and began playing the cello at age nine, and switched to the trombone at eleven. In high school he attended the Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina, the private school where Dizzy Gillespie had studied. While still in school he began sitting in with touring jazz musicians on their way through town, such as Art Blakey and Jackie McLean, with whom he formed a lasting friendship.

His close friend and roommate from college, Willie, was in attendance—“he always supported my musical aspirations.” Moncur III told a story of a time when an horrific fire blazed through his dorm. As he approached in shock, he asked where was Willie, who had run back in to grab Moncur’s trombone.

Moments after Willie got downstairs, encased trombone in hand, the building collapsed.

His mom Ella was close with Sarah Vaughan in Newark during her years in grammar and high school. In fact, she was with Vaughan and several other friends the night Sarah sang at the amateur contest at the Apollo Theatre. They all thought they could sing, and Sarah just happened to get picked among them that day.

After high school he toured with Ray Charles (1959-1962), Art Farmer's and Benny Golson's Jazztet (1962), and Sonny Rollins. He took part in two Jackie McLean classic albums in the early 1960s, One Step Beyond and Destination Out, to which he also contributed the bulk of compositions and which led to two influential albums of his own for Blue Note Records, Evolution (1963) with Jackie McLean and Lee Morgan, and Some Other Stuff (1964) with Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter.

After leaving Blue Note, Grachan joined Archie Shepp's ensemble and recorded with other avant-garde players such as Marion Brown, Beaver Harris and Rosewall Rudd (the other big name in free jazz trombone). During a stay in Paris in the summer of 1969, he recorded two albums as a leader for the famous BYG Actuel label, New Africa and Aco Dei de Madrugada, as well as appearing as a sideman on numerous other releases of the label. In 1974, the Jazz Composers' Orchestra of America commissioned him to write Echoes of Prayer (1974), a jazz symphony featuring a full orchestra plus vocalists and jazz soloists. His sixth album as a leader, Shadows (1977) was released only in Japan.

Unfortunately, he was subsequently plagued by health problems and copyright disputes and recorded only rarely. Through the 1980s he recorded with Cassandra Wilson (1985), played occasionally with the Paris Reunion Band and Frank Lowe, appeared on John Patton’s Soul Connection (1983), but mostly concentrated on teaching.

In 2004, after turning to the fundamentals he learned from his father and first music teacher, Grachan III re-emerged with a new album (Exploration) on Capri Records featuring his compositions arranged by Mark Masters for an octet including Tim Hagans and Gary Bartz.