Butch Warren was a fixture on Blue Note albums in the
1960s. One of the bright young bassists of his generation, he recorded with Herbie Hancock, Dexter Gordon, Jackie McLean, Thelonious Monk and others. Then he disappeared.
Reporting for MSNBC, Antoine Sanfuentes found Warren, traced his success, downward trajectory and attempt to re-etablish his career. The piece includes a link to a video profile of Warren. Thanks to Larry Appelbaum for calling our attention to it.
For more on Warren, from The Washington Post, go here and here.
Very interesting story. I’d wondered why I hadn’t heard of him for years; now I know.
There are many names that seem to have just vanished – for instance, what happened to Monk’s other 1960’s bassist, John Ore? And what’s the real story on Clarence (Gene) Shaw, that unique trumpet player? According to Wikipedia (a notoriously shaky source), he died in 1973 in LA. Is that true, and if so, what did he do in all that time after he left Mingus? And where’s Shafi Hadi, and Bill Triglia, and………….
I’m interested to know what happened to another great Blue Note (and other labels) bassist, Eddie Kahn? (John Ore I do know about – I even bought him a pint of Guinness here in Dublin a few years ago, when he came with the Sun Ra band), and he was so lovely.