Arthur Stewart Farmer was born on August 21, 1928, and passed away on October 4, 1999. He was an American jazz musician who played the trumpet and flugelhorn. He also used a special instrument called the flumpet, which combined features of the trumpet and flugelhorn and was designed for him. He and his identical twin brother, Addison Farmer, who played the double bass, began performing professionally while in high school in Los Angeles. Farmer became more well-known after a recording of his composition "Farmer's Market" was released in 1952. Later, he moved to New York, where he performed and recorded with musicians like Horace Silver, Sonny Rollins, and Gigi Gryce. He was most recognized for his work as a bebop player.
As Farmer's reputation grew, he explored new and more experimental styles of music by working with composers such as George Russell and Teddy Charles. He joined Gerry Mulligan's quartet and, along with Benny Golson, helped create the Jazztet. In the early 1960s, he switched from the trumpet to the flugelhorn, which has a warmer sound. This change helped make the flugelhorn a popular instrument for solo performances in jazz. In 1968, he moved to Europe and continued to tour internationally until his death. Farmer recorded over 50 albums under his own name, more than a dozen with the Jazztet, and many others with other musicians. His playing style was known for its uniqueness, especially his expressive melodies, rich tone, and emotional depth.
Early life
Art Farmer was born one hour before his twin brother on August 21, 1928, in Council Bluffs, Iowa, at 2201 Fourth Avenue. His parents, James Arthur Farmer and Hazel Stewart Farmer, divorced when the boys were four years old. Soon after, his father, a steelworker, died in a work accident. At age four, Art moved with his grandfather, grandmother, mother, brother, and sister to Phoenix, Arizona. He began playing the piano during elementary school, then tried the bass tuba and violin before choosing the cornet and later the trumpet at age 13. His family had a strong musical background: many played instruments as a hobby, and one relative was a professional trombonist. Art’s grandfather was a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, which influenced Farmer’s early interest in music, as his mother played piano for the church choir. The bass tuba was used in a marching band and was Farmer’s instrument for a year until he switched to the cornet. In Phoenix, schools were separated by race, and no teachers at Farmer’s school could offer music lessons. He taught himself to read music and practiced his main instrument, the trumpet.
In 1945, Farmer and his brother moved to Los Angeles, where they attended Jefferson High School, a school focused on music. There, they received music lessons and met other young musicians, including Sonny Criss, Ernie Andrews, Big Jay McNeely, and Ed Thigpen. The brothers earned money by working in a cold-storage warehouse and by performing professionally. Art began playing the trumpet professionally at age 16, performing in the bands of Horace Henderson, Jimmy Mundy, and Floyd Ray. These opportunities arose because of his talent and the absence of older musicians, many of whom were still serving in the military after World War II. At that time, Los Angeles had many chances for musical growth, Farmer said: “During the day you would go to somebody’s house and play. At night there were after-hours clubs […] and anybody who wanted to play was free to come up and play.” Farmer left high school early but convinced the principal to give him a diploma, which he received during a visit to the school in 1958.
As a teenager in Los Angeles, Farmer was drawn to bebop and the swing era big bands. Years later, he said, “I knew I had to be in jazz. Two things decided me – the sound of a trumpet section in a big band and hearing a jam session.” In the 1940s, Farmer was influenced by trumpet players such as Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Fats Navarro. However, he later said, “then I heard Freddie Webster, and I loved his sound. I decided to work on sound because it seemed like most of the guys my age were just working on speed.”
Later life and career
Farmer left school to join a group led by Johnny Otis, but this job lasted only four months because his lip became injured. Playing for long hours every day put too much pressure on his technique, which was not strong enough for the physical demands. His lip eventually got cut, and he could no longer play his instrument. He then received training in New York, where he worked as a janitor and played as a freelance musician in 1947 and 1948. He tried out for Dizzy Gillespie’s big band but was not chosen. In 1948, Farmer returned to the West Coast as part of Jay McShann’s band. Finding work in Los Angeles was difficult during the late 1940s and 1950s because most club and studio jobs were held by white musicians. Farmer played and toured with Benny Carter, Roy Porter, and Gerald Wilson, and later with Wardell Gray from 1951 to 1952. Traveling by car between Phoenix and El Paso to reach another gig, Farmer was in a car accident that left him with a head injury and caused Porter to break his ribs.
Farmer’s first studio recording was made in June or July 1948 in Los Angeles, under the direction of vocalist Big Joe Turner and pianist Pete Johnson. They recorded “Radar Blues,” and later added seven more songs. These eight tracks were released as four singles by Swing Time Records. Farmer later recorded with Roy Porter and, on January 21, 1952, as part of Wardell Gray’s sextet. This session produced six tracks, including “Farmer’s Market,” a song Farmer wrote that brought him more recognition.
Farmer worked as a hotel janitor and hospital file clerk in Los Angeles before joining Lionel Hampton’s orchestra in 1952. He toured Europe with the orchestra from September to December 1953 and shared trumpet duties with Clifford Brown, Quincy Jones, and Benny Bailey. This experience helped his musical growth, as did his 1953 membership in Teddy Charles’s New Directions band, which exposed him to new ways of improvising.
Farmer moved to New York and had his first recording session as a leader on July 2, 1953. This session, combined with another recorded 11 months later, formed the eight-track Prestige LP, The Art Farmer Septet, featuring arrangements by Quincy Jones and Gigi Gryce. Farmer became one of the most in-demand trumpeters of the 1950s, working with Gryce (1954–56), Horace Silver (1956–58), and Gerry Mulligan (1958–59). He also performed with pianist Thelonious Monk on a version of the Steve Allen Show in 1955 and played in the Charles Mingus sextet’s performance at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1955.
Farmer recorded only twice with Horace Silver’s group because Silver recorded for Blue Note Records, while Farmer was signed to Prestige. Label conflicts limited collaboration between the two groups. Joining Gerry Mulligan’s piano-less quartet was challenging for Farmer, who compared the experience to “walking down the street naked.” As part of Mulligan’s band, Farmer appeared in films I Want to Live! (1958) and The Subterraneans (1960) and toured Europe, helping build his international reputation. In New York, Farmer worked with Lester Young, who advised him to “tighten up and tell a ‘story’ in each solo.” At this time, Farmer rented his trumpet to Miles Davis, who had pawned his own due to drug use.
From the mid-1950s, Farmer appeared on recordings by arrangers like George Russell, Quincy Jones, and Oliver Nelson, who valued his ability to play diverse styles. He also participated in experimental sessions with composer Edgard Varèse in 1957, where musicians were asked to improvise within Varèse’s approximate notation. These sessions influenced Varèse’s composition Poème électronique. Critic Whitney Balliett praised Farmer’s unique style, noting that he was one of the few modern trumpeters who stood out from the influence of Dizzy Gillespie or Miles Davis. Farmer was one of 57 jazz musicians in the 1958 photograph A Great Day in Harlem and later appeared in the 1994 documentary of the same name.
In 1959, Farmer formed the Jazztet with Benny Golson, a group that lasted until 1962. The Jazztet recorded for Argo and Mercury Records and helped launch the careers of pianist McCoy Tyner and trombonist Grachan Moncur III. In the early 1960s, Farmer formed a trio with guitarist Jim Hall and bassist Steve Swallow. His partnership with Hall lasted from 1962 to 1964, including two European tours. One tour was recorded for the BBC’s Jazz 625 program and later released on DVD. Hall left the second tour in Berlin, and pianist Steve Kuhn replaced him. In 1964, this new quartet recorded the album Sing Me Softly of the Blues for Atlantic Records. These bands played calm, smooth music during a time when experimental jazz was growing in popularity.
Farmer toured Europe in 1965–66, then returned to the U.S. to lead a small group with Jimmy Heath. His style continued to evolve, partly because he studied and adapted John Coltrane’s innovations from the early 1960s. However, work opportunities declined as rock music became more popular in the mid-1960s, so Farmer joined the pit orchestra for The Apple Tree on Broadway for six months.
Farmer continued touring Europe, moving there permanently in 1968 and settling in Vienna. He performed with The Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland Big Band and joined the Austrian Radio Orchestra, which initially required only ten days of work per month. This allowed him to play with expatriate musicians like Don Byas, Dexter Gordon, and Ben Webster. As the orchestra’s style shifted from jazz to simpler forms and took up more of his time, Farmer left after three to four years. He pursued his musical goals by traveling globally, stating in 1976, “I’m traveling 90 percent of the time. I can live anywhere. It’s just a matter of getting to the airport.” A 1982 revival of the Jazztet with Golson increased Farmer’s U.S. performances. In the 1980s, he also formed a quintet with saxophonist Clifford Jordan that toured internationally. In the early 1980s, Farmer made lifestyle changes to support his career.
Personality and family life
Farmer first married in the mid-1950s to a woman from South America. They divorced after about a year, but they had one son, Arthur Jr., who died in 1994. Farmer’s second wife was a distant cousin; this marriage also ended in divorce. He married again to a Viennese banker named Mechtilde Lawugger, and their son, Georg, was born in the early 1970s. They built a house in Vienna and lived there together. Farmer said he was happy with his lifestyle in Europe, where he did not face racism, unlike in his homeland. In 1985, Farmer described himself as “an introvert, and kind of reclusive.” He had a soundproof room in his Austrian home, which allowed him to practice alone for four to five hours each day. Others often said his personality was calm and gentle, like his music. For example, Leonard Feather wrote in 1990 that Farmer was “mellow, relaxed, and […] gentle.”
Farmer was deeply affected by the sudden death of his twin brother in 1963. More than 20 years later, he said he still dreamed of his brother and admitted, “It seems there’s a part of him I haven’t fully gotten over.” Farmer’s third wife died from cancer in 1992. Three years later, he said, “I guess I never will really recover from that because we had been together for over 20 years when she died.” After Farmer’s death, he was survived by his companion and manager, Lynne Mueller, and his son.
Playing style
Descriptions of Farmer's playing style often highlight his beautiful melodies and the warm, rich sound he created. The Los Angeles Times wrote that his playing had "a sweetly lyrical tone and a melodic way of shaping notes, without reducing his ability to play rhythmically lively phrases." The Guardian noted that Farmer avoided the bright, sharp sound of traditional trumpet playing and was influenced by the more gentle style of musicians like Miles Davis and Kenny Dorham. While he sometimes played more softly than Davis or Lee Morgan, the Guardian stated that Farmer was still a unique artist. His way of playing notes was always special, letting the beat come before the notes, similar to how Billie Holiday sang.
Farmer switched from playing the trumpet to mostly using the flugelhorn in the early 1960s. He chose this instrument because of its softer, smoother sound and because he could produce the sounds he wanted without using a mute. In 1989, he helped create a new instrument called the flumpet, which combines features of a trumpet and flugelhorn. This instrument was made for him by David Monette, an instrument maker. The flumpet allowed Farmer to express himself more clearly in different musical settings, from small groups to large ensembles. In 1997, Monette gave Farmer a special flumpet decorated with symbols representing important people and places in his life.
Farmer remained committed to exploring new ways of expressing music throughout his life. At age 67, a concert review noted that his style was still changing, as he played solos with smooth, flowing lines that sometimes included sudden, wide jumps in melody and unexpected rhythm patterns. A few months before his death, The Guardian observed that although faster songs became harder for him to play, Farmer's performances of slower pieces reached a new level of emotional depth.