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-beloved
fixture at regional music festivals, and always an exciting soloist.
Lanphere has a long string of fine, straight-ahead combo dates available
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.
This caps 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 didn't regard it as possible that such a combo 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.
A respected teacher and elder statesman of jazz, Lanphere makes his home
in Kirkland, Washington, minutes from Seattle.