Dizzy Reece

Alphonso Son “Dizzy” Reece switched from saxophone to trumpet at fourteen and was a full-time working musician by sixteen, playing the streets and clubs of Kingston before an Alpha Boys School education pointed him toward a career abroad. He arrived in London in 1948 and spent the next decade based across Europe, much of it in Paris, sharing stages with visiting American players like Don Byas, Kenny Clarke and Thad Jones.

His breakthrough came in 1958, when a London session backed by Donald Byrd, Tubby Hayes and Art Taylor became his debut for Blue Note — Blues in Trinity, unusually recorded in north London rather than the label’s usual New Jersey studio. The record won admiration from Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins, and reportedly put Reece in contention for a place in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.

He relocated to New York in 1959 on Davis’s recommendation, cutting a run of albums at Van Gelder’s studio — Star Bright, Soundin’ Off and the long-shelved Comin’ On!, unreleased until 1999. New York proved a harder city to crack than Europe had been, and his output through the 1960s and 70s grew sporadic, earning him a reputation as “the elusive trumpeter.” He remains active into his nineties, with 2026 tribute events marking his 95th birthday and renewed appreciation for a catalogue collectors have quietly prized for decades.

For collectors, the London-era Tempo and Blue Note sides are the ones worth chasing hardest — original UK and US pressings of Blues in Trinity and Star Bright turn up rarely and carry real premiums, while the Mosaic Select reissue offers a more accessible way into the same run of sessions.