| John D'earth | |
| Birth Name: | John Edward Dearth II |
| Birth Date: | 30 March 1950 |
| Birth Place: | Framingham, Massachusetts United States |
| Origin: | Holliston, Massachusetts United States |
| Genre: | Jazz, hard bop, post-bop |
| Occupation: | Musician Composer Professor |
| Instrument: | trumpet |
| Years Active: | 1967–present |
| Label: | Vanguard, Double-Time |
| Associated Acts: | Bruce Hornsby Dave Matthews Band Jae Sinnett |
John D'earth (born March 30, 1950) is an American post-bop/hard bop jazz trumpeter born in Framingham, Massachusetts, who has appeared on recordings by Dave Matthews and Bruce Hornsby as well as recording a number of CDs on his own. He currently resides in Charlottesville, Virginia.
John Edward Dearth II was born in 1950 in Framingham, Massachusetts, growing up in nearby Holliston. His father had survived the Pacific theater of World War II and was "obsessed" with jazz. D'earth, who added the apostrophe to his name later in life, says of his progenitor, "He was a maniac for music and for jazz music. He was my first teacher. He revealed to me mysteries of art and music that are priceless."[1]
His father would blast his records throughout the night, driving the family crazy. He would also sit with his two-year-old son, teaching him to play drum brushes on a metal tray. His father was "drawn to the complexities of be-bop" with its raw rhythms and stylings. "He hated white bands that were corny and tight," D'earth states. "Those were prejudices too, and I learned some of those prejudices early on."
The D'earth family lived in a house from the 1690s that had been The Littlefield Tavern during the Colonial era. D'earth's parents divorced when he was eight, around the time he got his first trumpet. He immediately walked out into the yard and played it to the trees, discovering scales on his own.
Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five were D'earth's favorite band, but he also appreciated classical music. Jazz instruction wasn't so easy to find in the early 1960s, but D'earth crossed paths with Henry "Boots" Mussulli, who was a veteran of the big band days.
This Sicilian alto saxophone player and arranger had opened the Sons of Italy Crystal Room, a speakeasy that presented acts like Count Basie and Roy Eldridge in nearby Milford. He was part of a group of jazz instructors who helped form Berklee College of Music.
One day Mussulli sat a young D'earth next to him and called a friend and simply said, "Listen." He and D'earth began improvising on the Charlie Parker be-pop classic "Confirmation". When done, Mussulli picked the receiver and said, "Fourteen" — then hung up. That experience changed D'earth's life, confirming his musical gift. As a teenager, DownBeat said of his performance at the Newport Jazz Festival that he played "like a young Freddie Hubbard."
On Mussulli's impact D'earth says:
D'earth met Robert Jospé, a jazz drummer who would later relocate to Charlottesville and become a UVA music instructor, in 1967 at The Cambridge School of Weston, a preparatory high school near Boston. They started a group named Fire and Ice, and "began a collaboration that continues today."
D'earth attended Harvard University briefly only to drop out and pursue his musical career. In his early years he played in Bob Moses' innovative bands. He co-founded the group Cosmology (Vanguard Records) with bandmates drummer Robert Jospe and singer Dawn Thompson — whom D'earth later married. Jospé, D'earth, and Thompson, whom he met in New York, came to Charlottesville in 1981 for a summer and decided to settle there. Before heading for New York City, Thompson had helped found the famed Prism Coffeehouse musical venue in Charlottesville.[2]
D'earth serves as Director of Jazz Performance at the University of Virginia[3] and was at one point the jazz artist in residence at Virginia Commonwealth University.[4] D'earth was music teacher at The Tandem School in Charlottesville from the early to mid-1980s.
D'earth regularly plays at Miller's Downtown on the Charlottesville pedestrian mall with other musicians including JC Kuhl, Pete Spaar, Jamal Millner, Devonne Harris, Pureum Jin, Brian Caputo, Wells Hanley, Adam Larrabee, Brian Jones, and many others. He often played at Fellini's No. 9 with Devonne Harris (drums), Bob Hallahan (piano), and Pete Spaar (upright bass).
D'earth makes frequent appearances with younger up-and-coming players as well as older mainstay musicians alike in the Richmond, Virginia, area. D'earth is known for his work with musicians such as Miles Davis, Buddy Rich, Dave Matthews Band, and Emily Remler.[5] He has recorded for Vanguard Records, ENJA Records, DoubleTime Jazz, and his own Cosmology label.
Solo
On (Cosmology, 2013)[6]
Restoration Comedy (Double-Time, 2000)[7]
Thursday Night Live at Millers (Cosmology, 1998)[8]
One Bright Glance (Enja, 1990)[9]
With Thompson D'earth
When the Serpent Flies (Cosmology, 2006)[10]
Mercury (Cosmology, 2001)[11]
With Ray Anderson
With Emily Remler
(Oxford University Press, 1999); pages 175–76.
D'earth appeared regularly with his vocalist wife Dawn Thompson, who died August 31, 2017, after surviving nine years with brain cancer. She was born in Alexandria, Virginia, on October 9, 1946.