The American trumpeter Donald Byrd (1932-2003) was one of the most important representatives of hardbop and, like his colleagues Miles Davis and freddie hubbard, succeeded in redirecting his productions towards funk and soul, thereby fi nding a new audience and conquering the Pop charts, when Rock began pushing Jazz into a niche at the end of the 60s. The 2nd hip hop Generation sampled his albums 'Black Byrd', 'Street Lady" and his productions for the Blackbyrds.

He was also actively involved in projects like Guru's Jazzmatazz. Byrd came from Detroit and was a revered member of the Motor city's Jazz scene, where he learned his craft alongside colleagues such as Kenny Burrell, Tommy flanagan and Pepper Adams, all of whom also moved to New York later on. he also enjoyed a thorough academic education and career, which was always of importance for him as a professor at major us universities. in 1955 he moved to the Big Apple and almost immediately replaced cliff ord Brown, who had recently died under tragic circumstances, in Art Blakey's Jazz Messenger.

In the following years, he played on albums by almost all of the well-known and important colleagues of the time: from Thelonious Monk to John coltrane and sonny Rollins. in addition to leading his own ensembles with Gigi Gryce and old friends from Detroit, he had a quintet with Pepper Adams from 1958-1961 and regularly recorded for Blue Note. Byrd showed his touch for extraordinary talents on piano with collaboration with Duke Pearson and herbie hancock, endorsing the latter in the early stages of his career and also being the one to recommend hancock's collaboration with Miles Davis.

Interestingly, the Byrd composition 'Pentecostal Feelin' from the album 'Free Form', which completes this collection of the most important recordings of Byrd's early work, sounds like a blue print for the fi rst hit for the Blue Note label, Lee Morgan's 'Sidewinder', which was to be released three years later. In the Nineties Byrd returned to the hardbop of his youth and also taught many of the Jazz-stars of today as a professor at various universities.