This week Tony and I blew our horns! The trumpet has played a central role in the development of Western popular music, particularly in jazz, where it emerged as a leading melodic and improvisational voice in the early 20th century. Its bright timbre and dynamic range have made it equally effective in ensemble settings and as a solo instrument, capable of both fanfare and lyricism. From early New Orleans recordings to modal jazz, popular song, and contemporary hybrids, the trumpet has remained a flexible vehicle for stylistic change and musical expression. This week we looked at a range of songs featuring solo trumpet, across numerous decades and genres.
Louis Armstrong & Miles Davis
West End Blues was originally composed by Joe “King” Oliver, and takes its name from a leisure district at the western edge of Lake Pontchartrain, once a popular destination for New Orleans residents. The most influential recording is Louis Armstrong’s 1928 version with His Hot Five, notable for its opening unaccompanied trumpet cadenza, which marked a decisive shift toward soloist-centred jazz. Armstrong’s performance combines technical command with expressive freedom, including an early example of scat singing in dialogue with the clarinet. Recorded using the then-new electrical process, the track was later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and is widely regarded as a foundational moment in early jazz history.
Blue in Green appears on Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue (1959), an album that helped establish modal jazz as a dominant post–hard bop language. The piece, attributed to Davis but long associated with pianist Bill Evans, is unusually compact, built around a short, looping harmonic cycle rather than a conventional song form. Davis’s muted trumpet explores modal colour rather than chord-scale resolution, while Evans’s piano voicings shape the piece’s subdued atmosphere. The track exemplifies the album’s broader aesthetic: restraint, space, and a focus on tone and mood over virtuosic display.
John Cale & Buena Vista Social Club
Released as the sole single from his seventh studio album Honi Soit (1981), Dead or Alive reflects John Cale’s post–Velvet Underground work at a moment of stylistic consolidation. Recorded in New York, the track features trumpet contributions from John Gatchell, who in the same year was hand selected by Paul Simon to play on Simon & Garfunkel Concert in Central Park. Although it did not chart, the song sits within a period where Cale balanced experimental instincts with more accessible song forms. Its title references the medieval French maxim Honi soit qui mal y pense (French: “shame upon him who thinks evil of it”).
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Built on a clear Andalusian cadence (Am–G–F–E), El Cuarto de Tula (1997) draws on Afro-Cuban son traditions and narrative humour. The song was recorded as part of the Buena Vista Social Club project, which reunited veteran Cuban musicians – including trumpet player Manuel “Guajiro” Mirabal (1933–2024) – whose careers had been curtailed following post-revolutionary cultural changes. Its lyrics describe a domestic mishap rendered with double entendre, a common feature of traditional Cuban repertoire. The international success of the album helped revive global interest in pre-revolutionary Cuban popular music and re-established its performers on the world stage.
Jay-Z & Emma-Jean Thackray
Encore, from Jay-Z‘s The Black Album (2003), layers contemporary hip-hop production over a sampled trumpet introduction from John Holt’s reggae cover of I Will, meaning Lennon-McCartney are given a songwriting credit. The song was produced by Kanye West, and its later remix with Numb/Encore with Linkin Park (2004) expanded its audience and reinforced its crossover appeal.
Golden Green, from Emma-Jean Thackray’s debut album Yellow (2021), was written, produced, and largely performed by Thackray, who contributes trumpet, vocals, and other instrumental parts alongside a small ensemble. Thackray began playing cornet in primary school and later studied jazz performance at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama under Keith Tippett, followed by a master’s degree in orchestral jazz composition at Trinity Laban Conservatoire, where she studied with Issie Barratt and Errollyn Wallen. The album was self-released on her own Movementt label and reached No. 1 on the UK Jazz Albums Chart and No. 3 on the UK Independent Albums Chart, earning Thackray Jazz FM’s Act of the Year (public vote) in 2021 and Album of the Year in 2022.
The Kinks v The Doors
Our soundslike this week explored the story of The Kinks‘ All Of The Day And All of The Night (1964) and The Doors‘ Hello, I Love You (1968); it’s a story about publishers, and involves Ray Davis seeking permission from Ray Davis!
Trumpet Quiz
For our quiz this week, you heard famous songs that contain a solo trumpet (backwards) – guess the artist and song!
As always, find the show and blog at joebennett.net/5live, with occasional Instagram extras at @joebennettmusicology. With a new show comes a new Spotify mega-playlist, which contains all songs featured on the show:
And you can still listen to our old mega-playlist here.
- Words: Joe Bennett, John Pierce O’Reilly
- Audio production: Joe Bennett, Rafi Waters
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