Valery Ponomarev

VALERY PONOMAREV is a Russian-born trumpeter/composer with one of the most unlikely and fascinating stories in jazz, as documented in his recently published memoirs, On the Flip Side of Sound (Author House 2009). Valery grew up listening to the Voice of America, fantasizing about playing with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Finally, in the mid-’70s, he defected, sat in with the band in New York, and when Bill Hardman left, Valery took over the trumpet spot. A disciple of Clifford Brown, he went on to record 11 albums with Bu, with reviewers often singling out his work for praise. Four years later he left (bringing a young Wynton Marsalis into the band to replace him), and since then he has continued to tour and record prolifically, as both sideman and leader. His own CDs have consistently garnered the highest ratings in such prestigious reference books as the All Music Guide and the Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD.

In the fall of 2006 Valery received a great deal of unsought publicity when he was attacked at Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris by airport police. While he was trying to explain that he was always allowed to travel with his trumpet on board, they wrenched his horn away from him and twisted his arm behind his back, breaking it. Besides coverage in the Jazz press there were major articles in the NY Times and the International Herald Tribune, and a five-minute segment on the CBS Evening News. After three months of gigging with his arm in a cast, Valery was happy to be free of that encumbrance when on the road.