Trumpeter Langston Curl, whose name sounds like a fusion between black poetry and basic hair styling, did the main body of his recording work between 1927 and the mid 30's. He retired in Bridgeport, Connecticut, following some three decades out of the music business and was indeed so removed from the public spotlight by this time that his death seems to have gone unnoticed. He was a trumpeter beginning at the age of six, his first teacher being one of his cousins. Curl began gigging around his home town of Norfolk, Virginia, with a variety of local outfits but his first real professional job was in the superb McKinney's Cotton Pickers. In this outfit he developed brilliant abilities as a section player, setting a standard in the basic refinement in the sound of jazz during this period.

The group, based out of Detroit, kept a smile on Curl's face for four years, after which he joined up with Don Redman. In 1937 he quit music as a fulltime profession following a stint touring in a combo led by Jessie Owens. Hit parade listeners in the '30s also heard a good deal of his trumpet sound on sides by the Boswell Sisters and

the Mills Brothers. Until 1964 his main profession was with a Bridgeport brass company, something of a logical choice for a trumpeter. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi