Miles Donahue

New Englander Miles Donahue is a veteran horn player who knows his way around the trumpet as well as some members of the saxophone family, including the tenor and the soprano. The hard bop/post-bop musician has also played the piano, although he seems to prefer wind instruments. On both trumpet and sax, Donahue projects a quiet strength; he swings, but often in an introspective, reflective, lyrical fashion. For a long time, the Boston resident put his jazz career on hold due to family obligations, but since the late ‘80s, he has been making up for lost time by playing jazz consistently. Donahue was born on August 19, 1944 in Watertown, MA, where he began studying the trumpet at the age of ten. One of the people who encouraged Donahue's interest in the trumpet was his father Babe Donahue, a local trumpeter/arranger with a strong Roy Eldridge influence. After reaching adulthood in the ‘60s and enrolling in Lowell State College in Lowell, MA, Miles Donahue heard Boston tenor man Charlie Mariano--one of his favorite musicians--and decided to study the saxophone as well. He also studied the piano at Lowell State College, and it was during his college years that he spent some time playing trumpet in a soul band. After dropping out of college, Donahue got married and had two kids at a young age--and although he supported his family with music, he didn't do it by playing jazz exclusively. Feeling that rhythm sections were more likely to stay busy than horn players, Donahue spent about five years playing the piano exclusively and paid the bills with musical activities that weren't jazz-related. The New Englander didn't give up jazz altogether during that period; he wrote all of the material for a jazz album by flutist Paige Brook (who was with the New York Philharmonic at the...