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Don Lanphere at Bellevue Jazz Fest, 1991

 

The late Don Lanphere was (along with the late Floyd Standifer) the dean of the Pacific Northwest jazz scene. Don was a well-known saxophonist and educator with a stellar past. Equally adept on tenor or soprano, Lanphere is a much-belovedfixture at regional music festivals, and always an exciting soloist.In his later years, Lanphere put out a long string of fine, straight-ahead combo dates on hep records, a Scottish label. These sessions feature the cream of Northwest jazzdom: soloists such as pianist Marc Seales, vocalist Jay Clayton, cornetist Jon Pugh, and guitarist Larry Coryell.

The Hep sessions capped a distinguished career which began when the lanky, twenty-something saxman from Wenatchee, Washington, talked his way into a stellar record date in New York City back in 1949. Fantasizing about his "dream lineup" for an upcoming session on Prestige, he named several of the leading modernists to his A&R man: Fats Navarro, Al Haig, Tommy Potter and Max Roach. Though Lanphere was just fantasizing, never dreaming that such a lineup actually would record under his name, that is exactly what happened a few weeks later, in what has gone down in history as the Wailing Wall session, reissued on Blue Note some 10 years ago on CD.

A respected teacher and elder statesman of jazz, Lanphere made his home in Kirkland, Washington, minutes from Seattle.