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57Veterans CommitteeHall of FameBy Ira Gitler[Editor’s Note: A number of important jazz artists who are no longerwith us clearly deserve to be included in the DownBeat Hall of Fame.Our Veterans Committee, designed specifically to rectify that situation,recently voted to induct two historic jazz legends who have been overlookedin the past.]Oscar PettifordBassist Oscar Pettiford was a driving force who illuminated the jazzscene through the 1940s and ’50s. He picked up the torch fromDuke Ellington bassist Jimmy Blanton, who had brought theinstrument into the modern era through his pizzicato, hornlike solo linesbefore meeting an early death in 1942.Pettiford was born on an Indian reservation in Okmulgee, Okla., onSept. 30, 1922. One of 11 children, he played in a family band that touredall over the Midwest and the South. By age 10, he was fronting the band,singing, dancing and twirling a baton. Pettiford played piano, tromboneand trumpet before moving into the ensemble as a bassist at age 14. Notenamored of bassists who did a lot of slapping or rode the instrument as ifit were a horse, he gravitated toward “serious instrumentalists”—playerssuch as Milt Hinton with Cab Calloway, Billy Taylor of Ellington’s band,Jimmie Lunceford’s Mose Allen and Fletcher Henderson’s Israel Crosby.Hinton came to Minneapolis with Calloway in 1942 and foundPettiford working in a war plant. The family band had shrunk to fivepieces and was scuffling. Hinton encouraged Pettiford to not let his talent“go down the drain” and convinced him not to be afraid of New York.When Charlie Barnet’s band came to town two months later, Barnet hiredPettiford and took him to New York. There he worked with TheloniousMonk at Minton’s and Roy Eldridge at the Onyx Club on 52nd Street.Pettiford joined Dizzy Gillespie at the Onyx in a co-led quintet that wasthe first group to play the music that soon would be called bebop.One of the numbers Pettiford contributed to the book was “For BassFaces Only,” which Gillespie recorded with his big band in 1946 as “OneBass Hit.” Other well known pieces of his include “Something For You”(also recorded under the titles “Max Is Makin’ Wax” and “Chance It”),“Tricrotism,” “Swingin’ Till The Girls Come Home,” “Bohemia AfterDark” and “Blues In The Closet.”After playing in California with Coleman Hawkins’ group and BoydRaeburn’s big band, Pettiford joined Duke Ellington’s orchestra in the fallof ’45 and in the next three years established himself as one of the topbassists in jazz. In ’49 while with Woody Herman, he broke his arm duringa game with the band’s softball team. During his convalescence he took upthe cello and came up with a dextrous pizzicato that was imbued with thefeeling of Charlie Christian’s guitar style.From ’52 to ’58, Pettiford led small groups and an innovative 13-pieceband that was formed for a Town Hall concert and went ont to play severaltimes at Birdland. In ’58, Pettiford left for Europe and settled inCopenhagen, where he exerted a strong influence on the talented teenageDanish bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen.On Sept. 8, 1960, Pettiford died at the hands of what doctors describedas “a polio-like virus.”Pianist Dick Katz, who played in Pettiford’s small groups and bigband, said: “If I had to sum up Oscar, I would say that he should beranked with the select group of great jazz artists, beyond merely one ofthe great jazz bassists.”DOWNBEAT ARCHIVESOscar PettifordTadd DameronDOWNBEAT ARCHIVES34 DOWNBEAT August 2009