James 'Jimmy' Deuchar (b. 26 June 1930, d. 9 September 1993, in Dundee), was a jazz trumpeter, born in Dundee, Scotland who found fame as a performer and arranger in the 1950s and 1960s - a golden era of British jazz.

He is certainly the most successful jazz musician to come out of Dundee, and one of Scotland's genuine contributors to the history of jazz. He was taught trumpet by John Lynch, who learned bugle as a boy soldier in the First World War and who later was Director of Brass Music for Dundee.

Career

After National Service, Jimmy worked with the seminal British modern jazz unit, the Johnny Dankworth Seven (1950 - 51). During the 1950s, he worked with a number of commercial bands, such as the Oscar Rabin Band, and also intermittently with Ronnie Scott. In the late 1950s he worked with Kurt Edelhagen’s orchestra in Germany. He returned to the UK and worked again with Scott (1960 - 62) and with Tubby Hayes (1962 - 66). As a highly gifted player and a leading exponent of the “modern” style, he was in some demand and achieved success as a touring player in Europe and the United States. He also “sat in” with leading American players at Ronnie Scott’s club as musical exchanges were liberalised at the start of the sixties.

Jimmy returned to work with Edelhagen in 1966. Also during the sixties and early seventies, he worked with the Kenny Clarke - Francy Boland Big Band, a big band featuring leading European and ex-patriate American musicians.

He returned to London around 1971, working freelance, and then to Dundee in the mid 1970s. He continued to arrange, play and guest in a number of settings, including with London-based bands until his health began to deteriorate.

Jazz critic Alun Morgan has suggested (in the Gramophone Good Jazz CD Guide) that, along with Yugoslav Dusko Goykovich and Swede Rolf Ericson, Jimmy was one of only three European jazz trumpeters who were up to the standard of leading Americans in the early days of modern jazz.

Sources

John Chilton, Who's Who of British Jazz, Cassell, London 1997

Carr, Fairweather & Priestley, Jazz - the Essential Companion, Grafton Books, London 1987