Marvin Stamm Musician - All About Jazz

Updated: April 17, 2024

Born: May 23, 1939

Throughout his distinguished career, Marvin Stamm has been praised for both the art and the craft of trumpet playing. Leonard Feather stated that Mr. Stamm is an accomplished performer whose technical skill is used as a means to stimulating original ends. While attending North Texas State University, Mr. Stamm was discovered by Stan Kenton. Upon graduation, he joined Kenton’s orchestra as his jazz trumpet soloist, touring with him in 1961-1962 recording five albums with the orchestra. In 1965-1966, he toured worldwide with Woody Herman.

Settling in New York in late 1966, Marvin Stamm quickly established himself as a busy jazz and studio trumpeter. New York was bustling with jazz activity during that period, and Stamm performed at key venues with many of the significant players in the business. He gained considerable recognition for his playing with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra (1966- 72) and the Duke Pearson Big Band (1967-70), as well as performing with Frank Sinatra (1973-74) and the Benny Goodman Sextet (1974-75) among others.

Stamm was also a recognized first-call studio player (1966-89), recording with Quincy Jones, Oliver Nelson, Duke Pearson, Thad Jones, Wes Montgomery, Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine, Bill Evans, Patrick Williams, Michel Legrand, Frank Foster, Paul Desmond, George Benson and many more. Eschewing the lucrative studio scene in the late '80s, Mr. Stamm has focused his attention on his first love, playing jazz. Since that time, he has been a member of John Lewis’ American Jazz Orchestra, the Bob Mintzer Band, the George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band, and Louis Bellson’s big band and quintet.

Mr. Stamm’s small group activities have included performing and touring with pianist Bill Mays as a duo and also with the Inventions Trio, which included cellist Alisa Horn. Mr. Mays was also a member of Stamm’s quartet with bassist Rufus Reid and drummer Ed Soph. Mr. Stamm currently co-leads a quartet with pianist Mike Holober that includes drummer Dennis Mackrel and bassist Mike McGuirk.

Holober and Stamm began playing together after meeting through their work with the Westchester Jazz Orchestra. Regular Sunday afternoon duo sessions nurtured a close friendship and a unique musical connection. When joined by bassist Mike McGuirk and drummer Dennis Mackrel, the scope of their intimate conversation expanded, resulting in a deeply satisfying interactive dialogue.

Marvin Stamm’s first solo album, Machinations was released in 1968, composed and arranged by Jazz legend, John Carisi. This was followed in 1982 by Stammpede, which heralded his re- dedication to a solo jazz career. In 1991, Stamm released Bop Boy, a quintet CD featuring tenor saxophonist Bob Mintzer, drummer Terry Clarke, pianist Phil Markowitz and bassist Lincoln Goines. A follow-up CD, Mystery Man, was released in 1993, again featuring Mintzer and Clarke, but this time in the company of pianist Bill Charlap, bassist Mike Richmond and saxophonist Bob Malach.

In November 2000, Mr. Stamm released two new CDs on his Marstam Music label. The first, a duo CD, By Ourselves, documented Mr. Stamm’s long-time collaboration with pianist Bill Mays. The second CD, The Stamm/Soph Project, is a quartet setting created with drummer Ed Soph that also featured bassist Rufus Reid and pianist Bill Mays with saxophonist Dave Liebman guesting on three tracks. November 2001 saw the release of Elegance, a quartet CD featuring the remarkable young pianist from Sweden, Stefan Karlsson along with bassist Tom Warrington and drummer Eliot Zigmund. The Stamm/Soph Project – Live At Birdland, released in 2005, features Mr. Stamm again working with Bill Mays, Rufus Reid, and Ed Soph, with guitarist John Abercrombie guesting on several tracks. Recorded “live” in the club over two evenings, this CD showcases all at their creative best. Alone Together, a two-disc set, a DVD and CD, was released in October 2007. This live concert was videoed and recorded at Rising Jazz Stars, an intimate concert venue in Beverly Hills, California and again featuring Bill Mays, Rufus Reid, and Ed Soph.

The Marvin Stamm/Mike Holober Quartet with Dennis Mackrel and Mike McGuirk has just released their album, The Marvin Stamm/Mike Holober Quartet Live At Maureen’s Jazz Cellar. Maureen’s is a beautiful, intimate club that provides an excellent environment in which to connect with a “listening” audience. The music was performed and recorded live in one evening, the results as heard by the audience, “in the moment.” This music was a labor of love for the quartet—all of us having deep roots in this music. Stamm and Holober”s musical involvement extends also to Holober’s octet, Balancing Act, and his large ensemble, The Gotham Jazz Orchestra—these yielding two recordings, Balancing Act and the Grammy nominated project, Hiding Out. Most recent is Balancing Act's newly released project, Don't Let Go. Critical response to Stamm’s work over the years has been highly enthusiastic.

Downbeat reported that Stamm “has a gorgeous tone on the trumpet and flugelhorn, and he flies through the changes.” JazzTimes said that “the Memphis native has chops and talent in abundance. He can burn on bebop changes, or mellow out on a ballad, all the time maintaining the lucid consistency that enthusiasm and experience engenders.” Jazz Review states, “It is a pleasure listening to the work of Marvin Stamm, anytime! Stamm is a musician’s musician, performing flawlessly on his trumpet and flugelhorn.”

Acknowledging his debt to the influence of former teachers and musicians, Marvin Stamm has spent a good deal of time and energy helping young music students develop their own voices. His involvement in Jazz education has taken him to universities and high schools across the U.S. and abroad as a performer, clinician and mentor, perpetuating the traditions that Jazz represents.

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Read "This Rock We're On: Imaginary Letters" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
March 9, 2025

This Rock We're On, acclaimed composer and pianist Mike Holober's 2024 recording as leader of the Gotham Jazz Orchestra, is challenging to summarize in mere words, as it consists of a multi-part suite (on two CDs) which blends jazz, classical and art songs in a thematic environment that uses a series of “imaginary letters" from a half dozen writers, artists and activists. Holober's orchestral response to them is the premise for “a meditation on the beauty of nature and the ...

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Mike Holober & the Gotham City Orchestra: This Rock We're On: Imaginary Letters

Read "This Rock We're On: Imaginary Letters" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
November 11, 2024

Dopo gli ultimi superlativi album orchestrali (Balancing Act, Palmetto 2015 e Hiding Out, Zoho 2019) la nuova incisione di Mike Holober con la Gotham Jazz Orchestra non dovrebbe stupirci, eppure questo doppio album ci ha nuovamente colpito. L'aggiunta di Chris Potter, John Patitucci, Nir Felder e della cantante brasiliana Jamile Staevie Ayres all'orchestra rende infatti il progetto quanto mai esaltante. Questi nomi completano un organico già nutrito di solisti ragguardevoli come Marvin Stamm e Scott Wendholt alle trombe, ...

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Mike Holober: This Rock We're On: Imaginary Letters

Read "This Rock We're On: Imaginary Letters" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
October 1, 2024

We live on a rock. A few billion years of the workings of the complexities of carbon chemistry put us here. The systems and intricacies of every element that has unfolded to maintain us should be respected and preserved. Mike Holober's This Rock We're On: Imaginary Letters, featuring Holober and his Gotham Jazz Orchestra, digs into this theme in a sprawling, two-disc big band jazz outing. Like life itself, and the resulting ecosystems, this multi-movement suite--an effort that is the ...

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Stan Kenton: Salute!

by Jack Bowers
February 16, 2023

Stan Kenton, one of the most renowned and influential bandleaders of the twentieth century, died on August 25, 1979. Fortunately—for the sake of history in general and creative music in particular—Kenton's remarkable legacy lives on, and in a perceptive and open-minded world would endure forever. Even to this day, small but devoted groups of enthusiasts share a wish that some previously hidden array of his material might come to light, satisfiying for the moment their craving for more memorable music ...

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Mike Holober & Balancing Act: Don't Let Go

Read "Don't Let Go" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 2, 2022

With Don't Let Go, pianist Mike Holober and the octet Balancing Act seemed to have found an ideal way to cross-breed classical motifs and contemporary jazz to produce a pleasurable listening experience. Then he added lyrics. Granted, not all lyrics are superfluous—even those that are either nebulous or indecipherable, as is too often the case here. It's simply that some listeners may be more receptive to an alternative in the form of, say, Marvin Stamm's trumpet, Dick Oatts' or Jason ...

Interview

Marvin Stamm: Team Player

by R.J. DeLuke
August 27, 2020

Trumpeter Marvin Stamm is known for being part of a gazillion albums, having that ability to go into a studio and play exactly what's required, whether it's for a records by pop singers, jazz artists, Paul McCartney, Donny Hathaway or touring with Frank Sinatra. It's a reputation the highly skilled player earned with hard work. But it's been awhile since the studio days. It's also been awhile since Stamm, 81, sat in the trumpet sections of some of ...

Album Review

Marvin Stamm, Mike Holober, Mike McGuirk, Dennis Mackrel: Live at Maureen's Jazz Cellar

Read "Live at Maureen's Jazz Cellar" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
August 21, 2020

Marvin Stamm, Mike Holober, Mike McGuirk and Dennis Mackrel; when musicians of that caliber gather onstage to record a live supper club session, even the diners snap to attention and harken closely lest any phrase or nuance eludes the ears. Such was the case on a December evening in 2019 at Maureen's Jazz Cellar in Nyack, NY (once home to the incomparable Zoot Sims) when the quartet held its audience in thrall for more than an hour as the tape ...

Interview

Marvin Stamm on Bernie Glow

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
October 13, 2020

In the recording studios of the 1950s, '60s and '70s, trumpet players had specialties. Like baseball batters and Old West gunslingers, top trumpeters in the horn sections of big bands and pop orchestras became distinguished for a particular style. Each of the four trumpet seats were occupied by players known for acing notes and nuances in arrangements. There were jazz soloists, power players, classical-flavored players, low-note players, note benders and players with a specific accent. And then there was Bernie ...
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Recording

Marvin Stamm & Mike Holober

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
July 13, 2020

Trumpeter and flugelhornist Marvin Stamm's recording legacy is astonishing. If you sail through his discography at his Wikipedia entry, his list of recordings runs about a quarter of a mile. In addition to leadership albums starting in the early 1960s through to today, Marvin was on albums by every major artist from the period, from Thad Jone/Mel Lewis's Consummation to the Average White Band's exceptional first AWB album, from albums by Stan Kenton and Gary McFarland to Gato Barbieri, James ...
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Interview

Marvin Stamm on Uncle Albert

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
August 16, 2012

Jazz fans are quicker than most to slap around other forms of music. Some fans are convinced that rock destroyed jazz (not so) while others insist that jazz sold out for commercial reasons (not so, either). New music comes with each generation, and that's how it played out in the mid-1950s and into the '60s. [Photo above of Marvin Stamm by Marvin S. Orling] Here's another revelation: Rock (and soul and disco) kept many jazz artists employed and meeting college ...
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Performance / Tour

Berkshires Jazz Announces Free "Jazz Appreciation Month" Concert Featuring USAF Liberty Big Band with Guest Soloist Marvin Stamm

Source: Ed Bride Associates
March 16, 2011

An Alumnus of the Stan Kenton Orchestra, Trumpet Legend Stammto Appear at April 8 Performance Celebrating Pittsfield's 250th Birthday PITTSFIELD, Mass.— Berkshires Jazz today announced that the U.S. Air Force jazz ensemble, the Liberty Big Band, will appear in a special concert on April 8 with trumpet legend Marvin Stamm as guest soloist. With free admission, the 7:30pm concert at Pittsfield's historic Colonial Theatre is part of the city's 250th birthday celebration, as well as being part of the nationwide ...
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196

Education

Marvin Stamm and the Russians

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
November 19, 2008

Performance / Tour

Trumpet Master Marvin Stamm to Headline Annual Open World Jazz Concert

Source: All About Jazz
October 30, 2008

Famed trumpeter Marvin Stamm and four Russian jazz artists from the Open World Cultural Leadership Program will perform at University of the Pacific on Nov. 14, along with the Brubeck Institute Jazz Quintet. Their performance and visit is hosted by the Brubeck Institute, located on Pacifics Stockton campus. The concert starts at 7:30 p.m. in the Faye Spanos Concert Hall.

The Open World Cultural Leadership Program is the embodiment of Dave Brubecks belief that the most effective diplomatic efforts are ...
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Video / DVD

Jazzed Media Releases Marvin Stamm Quartet DVD

Source: All About Jazz
October 15, 2007

Jazzed Media has released a new performance video of the Marvin Stamm Quartet on DVD. Jazz trumpeter Marvin Stamm is joined by quartet members Bill Mays on piano, Rufus Reid on bass, and Ed Soph on drums.

The Marvin Stamm Quartet DVD/CD Alone Together (JM9002) includes a live performance of the Marvin Stamm Quartet in Los Angeles, California recorded in late 2006. A CD compilation of the music from the live performance DVD is included in the combo package.

Currently, ...
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115

Festival

Seventh Annual Sackets Harbor Jazz Festival Features Marvin Stamm and Ted Nash

Source: All About Jazz
July 17, 2006

The Seventh Annual Sackets Harbor Jazz Festival, on Saturday, August 12th, will feature world-renowned tenor saxophonist Ted Nash, whose professional career began at age 16 with a gig with Lionel Hampton, and star trumpeter Marvin Stamm, who was discovered by Stan Kenton and was his jazz trumpet soloist in the early 1960s.

The festival will begin at noon with its traditional New Orleans style parade down West Main Street to the Sentinel Bandstand, led by the Hon. Michael E. Hoagland, ...
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115

Recording

Marvin Stamm/Ed Soph Project: "Live at Birdland" on Jazzed Media

Source: All About Jazz
March 2, 2005

Why a “live" CD? Why at Birdland? There are times when everything just seems right for doing something like this. The quartet had several bookings in the New York area within the space of eight days - a concert in Connecticut, the COTA Festival in Delaware Water Gap, PA, and four nights in Birdland in New York City. Ed Soph and I had been talking about recording another CD, and this seemed to be the perfect time. We’ve spoken often ...
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