Stamm, Marvin (Louis)

Stamm, Marvin (Louis), jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist; b. Memphis, Tenn., May 23, 1939. He began his study of music at the age of 12 in junior high school. He continued music at Memphis Central H.S. under the tutelage of A. E. McLain, studying trumpet with Perry Wilson, and freelancing around town. He then attended North Tex. State Univ., where he played in the Lab Band and freelanced around the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Upon graduation, he became Stan Kenton’s trumpet soloist for two years, then moved to Reno, Nev., where he worked in show bands until he joined Woody Herman (September 1965–July 1966). He settled in N.Y. in late 1966 and did studio work. He played with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orch. from 1966 until early 1973. He was also a member of the Duke Pearson Big Band during the band’s three year existence (1968–71). Stamm recorded with Quincy Jones, Oliver Nelson, Gary McFarland, Charles Mingus, Freddie Hubbard, Don Sebesky, Stanley Turrentine, Frank Foster, George Benson, Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Paul Simon, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, and Barbra Streisand. He made several tours with Frank Sinatra beginning in 1973. He left the studio scene around 1987, and since that time has worked with John Lewis’s American Jazz Orch., the Bob Mintzer Band, the George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band, Louis Bellson’s big band and quintet and, at times, with the big bands of composers Maria Schneider and Rich Shemaria. In the late 1990s, he toured primarily as a guest soloist, as well as in a duo with Bill Mays and a quartet with Ed Soph. In 1998, he worked with trumpeter Dennis Najoom in a Jazz/classical duo in which they performed compositions commissioned especially for them with an orch. or wind symphony. He visits universities and high schools across the U.S. and abroad as a clinician.

Discography

Machinations (1968); Stampede (1983); Bop Boy (1990); Mystery Man (1992); Dialogues/Poetry (1997).

—Lewis Porter