Jon Faddis

At 18 Jon Faddis joined Lionel Hampton's big band before joining the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra as lead trumpet. After playing with Charles Mingus in his early 20s, Faddis became a noted studio musician in New York, appearing on many pop recordings in the late 1970s and early 1980s.In the mid-eighties,he left the studios to continue to pursue his solo career,he became the director and main trumpet soloist of the Dizzy Gillespie 70th Birthday Big Band and Dizzy's United Nation Orchestra; from 1992 to 2002,As of May 2010, Faddis leads the JFJONY, while continuing also to lead the Jon Faddis Quartet and the JFQ+2.