Teddy Charles

All Music Guide:

Teddy Charles is a true rarity: a jazz musician who largely retired from the business. A skillful if not overly distinctive vibraphonist and (early in his career) quite capable on piano and drums, Charles was as important for his open-minded approach in the 1950s toward more advanced sounds as he was for his playing. He moved to New York to study percussion at Juilliard in 1946, but instead became involved in the jazz world. He had short stints with the big bands of Randy Brooks, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Buddy DeFranco, and Chubby Jackson from 1948-1951 and then played with combos headed by Anita O'Day, Oscar Pettiford, Roy Eldridge, and Slim Gaillard. He also became a member of the Jazz Composers' Workshop (1953-1955) along with Charles Mingus and Teo Macero, opening his style up to the influences of classical music and freer improvising. Charles, who recorded with Mingus, Miles Davis, and Wardell Gray, among many others, began leading his own stimulating record dates in 1951, and by 1953 he was also working as a record producer, a field that took much more of his time from 1956 on. He led his own sessions for Prestige, Atlantic, Savoy, Jubilee, Bethlehem (where he produced around 40 records, mostly for other artists), and Warwick from 1951-1960, but was hardly heard from in the 1960s, other than a 1963 set for United Artists. Charles relocated to the Caribbean, where he opened a sailing business. After participating in a 1980 jam session, he eventually moved back to New York, making a "comeback" record for Soul Note in 1988, but still remaining semi-retired from music.

Wikipedia:

Teddy Charles (April 13, 1928 – April 16, 2012) was an American jazz musician and composer whose instruments were the vibraphone, piano, and drums.

Born Theodore Charles Cohen in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, he he studied at Juilliard School of Music as a percussionist. Later he began to record and made personal appearances as Teddy Cohen with bands as a vibraphonist, writing, arranging and producing records in 1951 changing his last name to Charles.

Charles was one of many jazz musicians who hung out at an apartment building at 821 Sixth Avenue in New York City known as the Jazz Loft rented by photographer and artist David X. Young who in turn sublet two apartments to Hall Overton (Charles's mentor) and Dick Cary. Known as an innovator, his main work was recorded in the 1950s. Charles also did session work with musicians and singers as varied as Miles Davis and Dion. He recorded an album, Live at the Verona Jazz Festival, for the Italian Soul Note label in 1988.

Charles was the Captain of the Skipjack Pilgrim out of Greenport, New York (on the North Fork of Long Island) and performs music locally. In his last years, Charles began performing again after spending some years at sea.

Charles died in 2012, just three days after his 84th birthday.