Don Butterfield

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Don Butterfield (b. 1923, Centralia, Washington, d. November 27, 2006, Clifton, New Jersey) was an American jazz and classical tuba player.

[edit] Biography

Butterfield took up tuba in high school. He wanted to play trumpet, but the band director assigned him to tuba instead. He went on to study the instrument at Juilliard School.

He started his professional career in the late 1940s playing for the CBS and NBC radio networks. He played in orchestras, including the American Symphony, Radio City Music Hall Orchestra and on albums by Jackie Gleason.

In the 1950s, he switched to jazz, backing such artists as Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Sinatra, Charles Mingus, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Jimmy Smith and Moondog. He fronted his own sextet for a 1955 album on Atlantic Records and played the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival.

In the 1970s he worked as a session musician, he played on recordings for a variety of artists and on television and film soundtracks, including The Godfather Part II.

Butterfield suffered a stroke in 2005, which left him unable to play, and his death was from a stroke-related illness.