Arthur Stewart (Art) Farmer (August 21, 1928 – October 4, 1999), was an American jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player. He also played flumpet, a trumpet/flugelhorn combination designed for him by David Monette. Farmer was considered a master of ballad playing. His tone was soft and even and sure, with no vibrato and with canny silences built into his improvisations.
He was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and when he was 4 his family moved to Phoenix. He studied piano and violin in grade school there. As a teen-ager he joined a dance band playing big-band arrangements, and he often invited members of whatever swing band happened to pass through town to come to his house and jam with him and his twin brother, Addison, the bassist, who died in 1963. In 1945, when they were 16, the Farmer brothers moved to Los Angeles, having promised their mother that they would finish school. It was a time when great musicians were coming out of the city's integrated high schools; at Jefferson High Farmer studied with the well known music teacher Samuel Browne, who also taught Frank Morgan, Hampton Hawes and Don Cherry, among many others.
Farmer worked in Los Angeles with Horace Henderson, Johnny Otis and others, leaving school to join Otis's group on tour. He recorded a be-bop classic, "Farmer's Market," with Wardell Gray's band. In 1952 Farmer went on tour with Lionel Hampton, and in 1953 he settled in New York, joining bands led by Gigi Gryce and Horace Silver. In 1958 he was hired by the saxophonist Gerry Mulligan for one of his bracing new piano-less groups.
At the end of the 50's Farmer formed the Jazztet (a sextet), with the saxophonist Benny Golson. Together they wrote a deep repertory of harmonically sophisticated, tightly arranged music, and the group defined the state of the art for mainstream jazz until the music's prevailing winds began to grow wilder.
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The group broke up in 1962, and Farmer started another jointly owned group, with the guitarist Jim Hall. In the early 60's he often used the fluegelhorn, which has a warmer, creamier sound, suiting his lyricism and terseness.
In 1968, Farmer moved to Vienna, Austria after being invited to join the Austrian Radio Orchestra. Art also began to perform with the Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band and trombonist Peter Herbolzheimer. Though at this time he was based in Vienna, Art regularly toured throughout the United States where he would perform with local rhythm sections.
In 1977, Farmer formed a quartet that toured throughout the United States, Europe and Japan. Throughout the late 1970s, his quartet included saxophonist Harry Sokal, pianist Fritz Pauer, bassists Heiri Kanzig and Paulo Cardoso, drummers Mario Gonzi and Joris Dudli. In 1982, Art re-formed Jazztet with Benny Golson and toured and recorded with them throughout the late 1980s. For the reunion, Art and Benny were able to get the group’s original trombonist Curtis Fuller to participate.
In 1987, Art and Fritz Pauer recorded an album of duos. Entitled Azure, the album featured several originals, standards and even a traditional Austrian folk song. Beginning in 1989, Farmer performed on a hybrid instrument designed by craftsman David Monette that took the mechanics of the trumpet and flugelhorn. Calling it the “flumpet,” Art performed on the instrument during his late career. In 1990, Farmer led a group that featured pianist Cedar Walton,bassist Ron Carter and drummer Billy Higgins.
For the last few years, he had a residence in Manhattan and was dividing his time equally between Vienna and New York. Farmer passed away from cardiac arrest on Monday, October 4, 1999 in New York City. In 2001, Art was posthumously inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame.Farmer recorded more than 50 albums under his own name, a dozen with the Jazztet, and dozens more with other leaders. His playing is known for its individuality – most noticeably, its lyricism, warmth of tone and sensitivity. (Edited mainly from NY Times and Jazz Giants)