Jazz French Horn Recordings vol. 1 Julius Watkins

This is the first video in a series in which I talk a little about the pioneers of playing jazz on the french horn.
In this video, I introduce you to Julius Watkins. Juius is the grandfather of jazz french horn. He was a fantastic player with a tremendous high range and played on many record dates with other leaders as well as his own.
I don't have all of his records as they are very difficult to find so I show you the records and cds that I own.
Enjoy!
you can send me questions and also let me know what you would like to work on playing jazz on the french horn to:
joe@harmonicasongs.net

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• jazz french horn
• julius watkins
• john clark
• tom varner
• mark taylor
• charles mingus
• phil woods
• joe stoebenau

[imthebrother]

Hey Joe wanted to tell you I recently picked up one album by Julius called French Horns for My Lady for $1 and still falling in love with it!

[resojoe]

@imthebrother

Oh yea, that is one of my favorites. nice cover photo as well.

[akurtstic]

Can you possibly put some of your favourite jazz french horn tracks on youtube? That would be fantastic! Thanks,

Alice

[resojoe]

There would be some copyright problems with that and it wouldn't be fair to the hard working musicians. You can downoad most of the CD's I mention in these videos on iTunes inexpensively.

Thanks for watching!

[resojoe]

Be sure to attend the Julius Watkins festival October 3rd in Seattle, WA!

[barrtok]

go and get Jazz Contemporaries: reasons in tonality : a pure masterpiece.

[resojoe]

I have reasons in tonality...fantastic!

[resojoe]

Thanks for the info Tom. I'll have to get those records. I listen to Julius often. His recordings still sound current. Great to hear from you.

[tomvarner]

Also, other great recordings where Julius was a sideman: Johnny Griffin, "Change of Pace," Jimmy Heath, "Gemini," and Clark Terry, "Color Changes." All from around 1961 or so. I studied with Julius briefly for about 5 lessons in January 1976--great guy, a hero to me---best to all---Tom Varner

[tomvarner]

Thanks for doing this one, Joe, also! Julius showed us all that the horn can be a great instrument for jazz, as a solo instrument, not just for backgrounds or fattening up the middle voices in ensembles (though it is great for that too). Buddy Catlett, the bassist on the Phil Woods lp you mentioned, lives here in Seattle, and still plays, though is in pretty poor health now. He played with JW in the Quincy Jones Big Band, and they were good friends and roommates. best to all, Tom Varner