Don Butterfield

Biography

Don Kiethly Butterfield (April 1, 1923 – November 27, 2006) was an American jazz and classical tuba player.

Biography

Butterfield began to play the tuba in high school. He wanted to play trumpet, but the band director assigned him to tuba instead. He joined the United States Army Air Forces and reached the rank of technician fifth grade. After serving in the U.S. Military from 1942 to 1946, he studied the instrument at the Juilliard School.
Butterfield started his professional career in the late 1940s playing for the CBS and NBC radio networks. He played in orchestras, including the American Symphony, on albums by Jackie Gleason until he became a full time member at the Radio City Music Hall.
In the 1950s, Butterfield switched to jazz, backing such musicians as Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Sinatra, Charles Mingus, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Jimmy Smith, and Moondog. He led his own sextet for a 1955 album on Atlantic Records and played at 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.
The Grove Dictionary of Music calls Butterfield's playing style, "uncommonly florid, a skill that made him of value as a jazz musician... He was one of the first modern jazz players who, rather than simply marking out the bass line, rediscovered the possibility of bringing to the instrument a facility akin to that of a trumpeter."
Butterfield played an 8-foot-long trumpet on the May 21, 1962 episode of the I've Got a Secret television program (season 10, episode 519).video
Butterfield suffered a stroke in 2005, which left him unable to play, and he died in 2006 from a stroke-related illness.

As sideman

With Cannonball Adderley

African Waltz (Riverside, 1961)
Domination (Capitol, 1965)
With Nat Adderley

Autobiography (Atlantic, 1964)
With David Amram

Subway Night (RCA, 1972)
With Bob Brookmeyer

Brookmeyer (Vik, 1956)
Jazz Concerto Grosso (ABC-Paramount, 1957) with Gerry Mulligan and Phil Sunkel
Portrait of the Artist (Atlantic, 1960)
With Kenny Burrell

Blues - The Common Ground (Verve, 1968)
Night Song (Verve, 1969)
With Donald Byrd

Jazz Lab (Columbia, 1957) - with Gigi Gryce
I'm Tryin' to Get Home (Blue Note, 1965)
With Teddy Charles

Word from Bird (Atlantic, 1957)
With Jimmy Cleveland

Cleveland Style (EmArcy, 1958)
A Map of Jimmy Cleveland (Mercury, 1959)
With Bill Evans

Symbiosis (MPS, 1974)
With Art Farmer

Brass Shout (United Artists, 1959)
Baroque Sketches (Columbia, 1967)
With Maynard Ferguson

The Blues Roar (Mainstream, 1965)
With Dizzy Gillespie

Gillespiana (Verve, 1960)
Carnegie Hall Concert (Verve, 1961)
With Urbie Green

All About Urbie Green and His Big Band (ABC-Paramount, 1956)
With Coleman Hawkins
The Hawk in Hi Fi (RCA Victor, 1956)
With Jimmy Heath

Swamp Seed (Riverside, 1963)
With Roland Kirk

The Roland Kirk Quartet Meets the Benny Golson Orchestra (Mercury, 1963)
With John Lewis

Essence (Atlantic, 1962)
With Arif Mardin

Journey (Atlantic, 1974)
With Gil Mellé

5 Impressions of Color (Blue Note, 1955)
Gil's Guests (Prestige, 1963)
With Charles Mingus

The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (Impulse!, 1963)
Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus (Impulse!, 1963)
With the Modern Jazz Quartet

Plastic Dreams (Atlantic, 1971)
With James Moody

Moody with Strings (Argo, 1961)
Moody and the Brass Figures (Milestone, 1966)
With Wes Montgomery

Movin' Wes (Verve, 1964)
With Lee Morgan

Delightfulee (Blue Note, 1966)
With Oliver Nelson

Impressions of Phaedra (United Artists Jazz, 1962)
The Kennedy Dream (Impulse!, 1967)
With Oscar Peterson

Bursting Out with the All-Star Big Band! (Verve, 1962)
With Sonny Rollins

Sonny Rollins and the Big Brass (Metro Jazz, 1958)
With Lalo Schifrin

New Fantasy (Verve, 1964)
Once a Thief and Other Themes (Verve, 1965)
With Jimmy Smith

The Cat (Verve, 1964)
Hoochie Coochie Man (Verve, 1966)
With Billy Taylor

My Fair Lady Loves Jazz (Impulse!, 1957)
With Clark Terry

Top and Bottom Brass (Riverside, 1959)
With The Thad Jones / Mel Lewis Orchestra

New Life (A&M, 1975)
With Cal Tjader

Several Shades of Jade (Verve, 1963)
With Stanley Turrentine

Nightwings (Fantasy, 1977)