Artist: Oscar Pettiford

Oscar Pettiford was an American jazz double bassist, cellist, and composer. He was one of the earliest musicians to work in the bebop idiom. 

 He is quoted as saying he did not like the way people were playing the bass, so he developed his own way of playing it. In 1942, he joined the Charlie Barnet band and in 1943 gained wider public attention after recording with Coleman Hawkins on his "The Man I Love".  Pettiford also recorded with Earl Hines and Ben Webster around this time. After he moved to New York, he was one of the musicians (together with Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and Kenny Clarke) who in the early 1940s jammed at  Minton's Playhouse, where the music style developed that later was called bebop. 

In 1945, Pettiford went with Hawkins to California, where he appeared in The Crimson Canary, a mystery movie known for its jazz soundtrack, which also featured Josh White. He then worked with Duke Ellington from 1945 to 1948 and for Woody Herman in 1949, before working mainly as a leader in the 1950s. As a leader, he inadvertently discovered Cannonball Adderley. After one of his musicians had tricked him into letting Adderley, an unknown music teacher, onto the stand, he had Adderley solo on a demanding piece, on which Adderley performed impressively. 

Pettiford is considered the pioneer of the cello as a solo instrument in jazz music. 

He recorded extensively during the 1950s for the  Debut, Bethlehem, and ABC Paramount labels among others. During the mid-1950s he played on the first three albums Thelonious Monk recorded for the Riverside label. 

Between 1954 and 1958, Pettiford also led sextets, big bands and jazz orchestras which played dates in Manhattan venues like Birdland, where he continued to explore unusual instrumental voicing including French horns and harp.

n 1958, Pettiford moved to Copenhagen, Denmark,  and started recording for European companies. After his move to Europe, he often performed with European musicians, like Attila Zoller, and also with other Americans who had settled in Europe, such as Bud Powell and Kenny Clarke.

Further information about Oscar Pettiford is found here and here.