SONNY BRADSHAW
Genres: Dub, Ska, Reggae, World Fusion • Jamaica

Cecil Valentine "Sonny" Bradshaw, trumpeter, born 28 March 1926; died 10 October 2009 Sonny Bradshaw, who has died aged 83, was one of Jamaica's best-known musical figures. A polished trumpeter who played in the style of Dizzy Gillespie, he spent six decades as a bandleader and was a journalist, broadcaster and educator, devoted to promoting the island's music by any means possible. His Big Band became a Jamaican jazz institution, flourishing intermittently over three decades. Under Bradshaw's direction, musicians who became better known playing ska and reggae donned band uniforms to accompany singers Sarah Vaughan, Johnny Mathis and Johnnie Ray. Bradshaw had first-hand experience of the onerous conditions musicians faced in Jamaica, including racial discrimination. He served the Jamaican Federation of Musicians for 20 years without pay and managed to institute a four-hour work night and establish the right for Jamaican artists to enter hotels through the front door. He promoted preference for read more...