Sulieman, Idrees (Dawud ibn) (St. Petersburg, FL, 7 Aug 1923)

Trumpeter

After playing for four years with the Carolina Cotton Pickers he recorded with Thelonious Monk in 1947 and became a member of Cab Calloway's band the following year. Later he worked with many other big bands, including those of Count Basie, Lionel Hampton, and Dizzy Gillespie. In 1956 he played in Friedrich Gulda's ensemble of American musicians, and in 1958-9 he worked with Randy Weston. He toured Europe in the late 1950s with a group led by the pianist Oscar Dennard, and in 1961 he settled in Stockholm, where he began playing alto saxophone. From the mid-1960s to 1973 Sulieman was a member of the Clarke-Boland Big Band. In 1964 he moved to Copenhagen, and from that time has played mainly in Denmark; he has worked with the Radioens Big Band from the early 1970s. Sulieman's playing is rooted in the bop tradition; indeed, it has been said that he was one of the first musicians to adopt the bop style.

 Roland Baggenaes

The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, © Macmillan Reference Ltd 1988