Trombonist and music educator Julian Priester was born on June 29, 1935 in Chicago. He attended DuSable High School and by his late teens was sitting in with Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley and Sonny Stitt. Since that time Priester has become an important voice in the avant-garde jazz movement. As opposed to the term “jazz improvisation” Priester prefers to refer to “spontaneous composition.”

In the 1950s Julian Priester played with Sun Ra, Dinah Washington, Lionel Hampton and Max Roach. It is said that he was one of the few trombonists that could keep up with the chord changes at the sometimes breakneck tempos Roach chose and still play with style. Priester recorded with Roach no less than ten times.

In the 1960s Priester appeared on records with Booker Little, Stanley Turrentine, Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson and McCoy Tyner. Julian also spent six months in Duke Ellington’s trombone section in 1969. In the early 1970’s he recorded with Herbie Hancock three times, and since then has appeared on record regularly with Dave Holland and Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra.

In 1979 Julian Priester began teaching at the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle where he taught jazz composition, performance and history until his retirement in 2011. During that time, he continued to record, both as a leader and with the likes of Pat Metheney, Jane Ira Bloom and Reggie Workman. In recent years he has been leading listening sessions for the Seattle Jazz Fellowship.

Here is a link to a 1960 recording by the Julian Priester Sextet called “Blue Stride:”

"BLUE STRIDE"