Al Fairweather

While there was once a jazz fusion band named Weather Report, the surname of this Scottish trad jazz trumpeter is a weather report in itself. Al Fairweather, a staunch and loyal follower of classic jazz brass stylists such as Louis Armstrong and Roy Eldridge, was part of a collaborative band with a fellow Scotsman, clarinetist Sandy Brown, that was active for nearly a decade beginning in 1948. This relationship was followed by several years in the band of another clarinetist, Cy Laurie. Beginning in 1958, Fairweather breezed along with a sextet under his own name. In contexts such as this and the previously mentioned Brown outfit, original compositions by the trumpeter were given ample space on the set list. One of Fairweather's most famous and ambitious works was a suite of themes based on astrological signs; other titles from the trumpeter's publishing catalog seem to deal with more down to earth subjects, such as "Beat Meat." Fairweather continued performing and recording through 1987 -- by then, he had performed on more than 50 records, mostly on British labels such as Pye and Tempo.
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