Dupree Bolton

Dupree Bolton (3 March 1929 – 5 June 1993) was a jazz trumpeter from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He is known primarily for his appearance as a backing musician on two hard bop jazz albums, the first led by Harold Land in 1959, and the second led by Curtis Amy in 1963. Bolton spent most of his adult life incarcerated for non-violent crimes related to his drug addiction, and he was considered a mysterious figure by jazz musicians and writers during his lifetime because of the lack of available information about him. He played with relatively few jazz musicians during his musical prime, mainly in the Los Angeles area and inside U.S. prisons including San Quentin and Soledad. Biographical information on Bolton began to emerge following his death, most notably in the work of jazz historian Ted Gioia, who was able to find and interview Bolton four years before Bolton's death in 1993.

Childhood Dupree Bolton was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on 3 March 1929 as the eldest of his parents' four children. His father was a part-time professional violinist who also played other stringed instruments. Bolton started playing violin at age 5 at the behest of his father, but he soon moved to the trumpet and progressed quickly on the instrument. In 1941, Bolton's family moved to Southern California so that Bolton's father could work in the defense industry, which was expanding because of World War II. Bolton was not the only child in the family to pursue music professionally. As an adult, one of Bolton's two younger brothers, Dodge Bolton, played jazz piano professionally in the Seattle, Washington area and elsewhere.

Early professional experience in big bands In 1944, Bolton left home at age 14 against his parents wishes to join Jay McShann's band. This was during a period when many musicians had been drafted into U.S. military service for World War II, and underaged musicians were sometimes hired to complete band rosters. Bolton was an advanced musician for his age, and was given solo features by McShann. (Bolton joined McShann two years after saxophonist Charlie Parker had left the band, and the two musicians did not play together with McShann.) In 1989, Bolton described how he ran away with McShann's band: Bolton's brief stint with Jay McShann ended when McShann was taken into custody by the army as a draftee. The band members, including Bolton, were stranded away from home with no source of income.

Bolton went to New York City after the McShann band broke up. In New York, he was hired to play with the Buddy Johnson Orchestra, with whom he recorded two songs (“That’s the Stuff you Gotta Watch” and “One of Them Good Ones”, Decca 8671). Bolton used the name “Lewis Dupree” for the recording date, as his parents were actively looking for him and put ads in a newspaper offering a $25 reward for information about their son. In 1975, an LP featuring live recordings of the Johnson band was released (Buddy Johnson At The Savoy Ballroom 1945-1946, Jazz Archives JA-25), and Bolton can be heard as a 16-year-old soloing on a riff tune entitled "Traffic Jam".

Bolton left the Johnson band between December 1945 and January 1946 to join the trumpet section of the Benny Carter band. He made some studio recordings as a member of Carter's trumpet section, but he was not a featured soloist.

Periods of incarceration In 1947, one day before his 17th birthday, Bolton was arrested for marijuana possession during a search of his hotel room conducted by police officers who were investigating Bolton and a bandmate with whom he shared the room. Bolton was sent to Federal Medical Center in Lexington, Kentucky, which was operating as a combination of drug treatment center and prison, with some patients living at the institution voluntarily, and others, like Bolton, confined involuntarily because of federal drug convictions. Because he was still a minor, he was sentenced to serve a term that lasted until his 21st birthday.

In his January 1989 interview with Ted Gioia, Bolton said that he felt that prison likely kept him from an early death related to heroin addiction. Heroin had contributed to the death of Bolton's musical hero Fats Navarro, and to the early deaths of hard bop musicians including the pianist Carl Perkins, Sonny Clark, and Ernie Henry in the 1950s and 1960s. In that same interview, Bolton said he was able to make musical progress while incarcerated, and described his practice routine while serving the 4-year prison sentence at Soledad that began in 1951: 2009: Fireball (Uptown Records, recorded 1963 and 1980)