Top 12 All-Star Trumpeters of All Time : Music: Horns have played a central role in the jazz world since the first soloist, Buddy Bolden, used the cornet to ornament melodies.

What if they gave an all-star jazz party and no trumpeters came?

More than any other instrument, the horn would be conspicuous by its absence. From the beginning of time--jazz time, that is--the trumpet or cornet has been central to the music. Trumpeters functioned as actual or de facto leaders of the most influential groups.

Legend tells us the first jazz soloist was Buddy Bolden, 1877-1931, a New Orleans cornetist whose band played the honky-tonks of Storyville a century ago. Though it is said that he ornamented melodies rather than improvising freely, he supposedly became a formative influence on trumpeters Freddie Keppard, Bunk Johnson and others.

The impact and influence of such men will never be known; Bolden did not record: Keppard (1890-1933) and Johnson (1899-1949), both prominent in the early 1900s, recorded too little and too late to offer an idea of their reported pristine brilliance. Both, however, were heard in New Orleans and Chicago by the most influential hornman ever, Louis Armstrong.

Keppard, it is said by historians, had a chance to bring a black jazz band to records in 1916, but refused the offer for fear that he would be imitated by rivals.

As it turned out, the first jazz group ever recorded was an all-white original Dixieland Band, led by a trumpeter, Nick La Rocca, in 1917. The first memorable series of recordings by a black jazz band was led by King Oliver, out of whose ranks Armstrong emerged.

What does young America today know about Louis Armstrong or Dizzy Gillespie? Asking for an explanation of their role in history would be as productive as expecting a Tom Cruise fan to explain the importance of John Gilbert. To many young listeners only Wynton Marsalis’ name strikes a chord, though his role as an individual stylist remains to be firmly defined.

Sure, there are young talents vying for attention--perhaps too many. Time was when a jazzman served his apprenticeship with name bands before graduating to leadership. Today he may be vaulted from the unknown to become an overnight public relations vehicle, surrounded by producers, record companies and managers.

Of the current crop of players, Roy Hargrove, Terence Blanchard and Wallace Roney may be admired for their exploration of the trumpet roots; Ryan Kisor for his prodigious technique, Tom Harrell for his lyricism; but who among them will make it into the pantheon of the 21st Century?

In listing history’s most identifiable or influential trumpeters, no disrespect is meant to those who, while pointing the music in an evolutionary path, left it to others to make the most definitive steps forward.

Louis Armstrong

Conjuring magisterial melodic gems out of deceptively simple lines, with a purity of sound that was unmatched, Armstrong in the late 1920s created a series of masterpieces by small groups (the Hot Five and Hot Seven) that built a worldwide impact. His most durable works from this era are still available on CBS reissues.

Bubber Miley

In 1923 he joined Elmer Snowden’s Washingtonians, which became Duke Ellington’s orchestra. During almost six years with the band he initiated the practice of altering the sound of his horn through the use of a rubber plunger mute to achieve a growl or “wa-wa” effect. Cootie Williams and Ray Nance, fellow-Ellingtonians, copied the style, as have thousands of other trumpeters. Miley can be heard on the band’s early RCA and Columbia versions of “Black and Tan Fantasy,” “Creole Love Call” and “The Mooche.”

Bix Beiderbecke

The first great cornetist (despite its shorter appearance and softer sound, the terms cornet and trumpet were often used interchangeably; Bobby Hackett and others used both instruments regularly). Though almost unknown to the public during his brief career, Beiderbecke enchanted musicians with his bell-like, lyrical tone, heard in a famous series or small group sessions with saxophonist Frank Trumbauer, and in the bands of Jean Goldkette and Paul Whiteman. He was the first white musician to inspire blacks (Rex Stewart of the Ellington band copied his solos) and is well remembered also as a composer-pianist, whose solo recording of his “In a Mist” was decades ahead of its time. Most of his best work is still available on CBS.

Roy Eldridge

The next giant in the post-Armstrong line, “Little Jazz” Eldridge brought an intensely emotional quality to his solos along with a sense of harmony and technical dexterity that he employed to create a unique sense of crackling tension. Though he led his own bands off and on, he was one of the few great black artists prominently featured in white swing-era bands, with Gene Krupa, 1941-43, Artie Shaw, 1944, Benny Goodman, 1950. Though a pre-bop figure, he was the first major influence on be-bop pioneer Dizzy Gillespie.

Bunny Berigan

Armstrong named Berigan as his No. 1 choice in a “Musicians’ Musicians” poll. His second choice was Bobby Hackett: He admired both for their personal timbre and attack (Berigan reflected a strong Armstrong influence). Like Beiderbecke, Berigan had a short career destroyed by alcoholism, but his best recordings (“I Can’t Get Started” as both trumpeter and singer, in two versions on CBS and RCA, and “Marie” on RCA with the Tommy Dorsey band) still inspire young trumpeters almost six decades later.

Henry Red Allen

This New Orleans disciple of Armstrong moved from his big-band years (with Luis Russell, Fletcher Henderson and Armstrong) into a period that found him developing a singularly fluid way of phrasing as well as a variety of unique tonal effects (growls, trills, legato articulation). An exceptional interpreter of the blues, he carried the banner for swinging tradition even during Dizzy Gillespie’s heyday.

Dizzy Gillespie

He was Picasso to Armstrong’s Rembrandt. By 1945, when his style was fully formed, Gillespie had developed the most distinctive personality of this century’s second half, marked by dramatic melodic shifts, harmonic and melodic alterations that were at first misconstrued as “wrong notes,” and unprecedented technical facility. He was a pervasive influence both as soloist and composer (his “Con Alma,” “Night in Tunisia” and others are now standard repertoire). As has been true with many of the arts, yesterday’s avant-garde became, through Gillespie, today’s mainstream. His best early work is on Musicraft; later sessions on Verve.

Clark Terry

A multiple influence playing trumpet, fluegelhorn (with its fuller, richer sound), singing (often to comedic effect) and teaching at colleges, Terry like Gillespie has blended musical and entertainment values. Best known for his sojourn with Duke Ellington (1951-59), he expanded on a “squeezed tone” effect originated by a previous Ellingtonian, Rex Stewart. His impact has been fortified by innumerable recordings as leader and with Ellington, Oscar Peterson, Bob Brookmeyer, et al.

Miles Davis

A technically limited figure in the early bop days, he became a potent force in the 1950s through modal playing (using scales rather than chords), his use of the fluegelhorn, and his unique series of collaborations with arranger Gil Evans on “Sketches of Spain” and other albums. He later helped popularize jazz-rock, retired for several years, but recaptured some of his earlier glory in a final concert at Montreux, heard on Warner Bros. His best albums (“Kind of Blue,” “In a Silent Way,” “Porgy and Bess”) are on CBS.

Clifford Brown

His brief time in the limelight (mainly as co-leader with Max Roach of a quintet) earned the admiration of trumpeters ever since, on the strength of his rich sound and brilliantly crafted solos. There are numerous memorial albums on EmArcy and other labels.

Don Cherry

A maverick known for his work on a so-called pocket cornet, he has had a roller-coaster career with Ornette Coleman, then with rock singers and bands, and later with World Music groups in which he experimented on flute and percussion. CDs with Coleman on Contemporary, own groups on Blue Note.

Art Farmer

A Vienna-based expatriate since 1968, Farmer to this day is one of the most admired virtuosi among fellow horn men (he has played mainly fluegelhorn, and an instrument that he calls a flumpet). His graceful, undulant style is a virtual brass counterpart to saxophonist Benny Carter. CDs on Prestige, Concord, etc.

Honorable mention: Cat Anderson, Chet Baker, Buck Clayton, Bobby Hackett, Lee Morgan, Fats Navarro, Charlie Shavers, Cootie Williams.

Recommended anthology: “Jazz Club--Trumpet” (Verve).