Innovation is considered by many to be one of the key ingredients of good jazz.  Some performers, such as Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman, forced change through radical experimentation.  Others, such as Art Farmer and Jim Hall, were innovators of a quieter sort. Through their uses of mellow timbres, subtle counterpoint, and relentless swing, Farmer and Hall musically suggested that jazz could be revolutionized quietly as well as through loud and defiant rebellion. 

            In 1962 Art Farmer was looking for a means of expressing himself without the brashness of the trumpet or the improvisational confines of a large ensemble.  After playing a few concerts with Hall, Farmer discovered that his newly acquired flugelhorn helped him get the sound for which he longed, especially when it blended with Hall’s velvety guitar.  The Art Farmer Quartet was formed, and the group went on to record three albums with the flugelhorn/ guitar/ bass/ drums instrumentation.  Farmer became the first prominent jazz trumpeter to eschew his old instrument and become a jazz flugelhornist exclusively.

            This lecture-recital uses transcriptions of the early-1960s Farmer/ Hall recordings of My Little Suede Shoes by Charlie Parker, Sometime Ago by Sergio Mihanovich, and De Salde Sinna Hemman (a Swedish folk song).  In order to show the breadth and flexibility of their musical relationship, it also includes performances of their versions of Maurice Ravel’s Pavane for a Dead Princess and Hall’s Big Blues, both of which were recorded when Farmer and Hall reunited in the 1970s.  This discussion will illuminate the brilliant work of two musicians who are too often overlooked when discussions of “jazz greats” take place.