{"id":213796,"date":"2025-09-09T21:12:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T21:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/213796\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T21:12:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T21:12:13","slug":"bobby-bradford-phoenix-rising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/213796\/","title":{"rendered":"Bobby Bradford: Phoenix Rising"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Gary Fukushima<\/a> <\/strong>\u2002 I \u2002Sep. 9, 2025<\/p>\n

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\u201c[That\u2019s] the thing of the beboppers,\u201d Bradford said. \u201cThese guys were important for not only playing that wonderful music, but they knew a sort of social stance, you see?\u201d<\/p>\n

(Photo: Courtesy Bobby Bradford GoFundMe page)<\/p>\n

It was a calm, balmy, near-perfect evening in Westwood, California, not far from UCLA, in the expansive courtyard at the Hammer Museum. Every seat and walkway edge was packed with an energized, expectant audience, to hear cornetist Bobby Bradford and his seven-piece ensemble in a performance of his suite Stealin\u2019 Home: A Tribute To Jackie Robinson, a piece first debuted by Bradford in 2021, through a commission by the education-focused, non-profit organization The Baseball Reliquary. In introducing Bradford, Claudia Bestor, the museum\u2019s director of public programs and education, announced, \u201cLike a phoenix rising from the ashes, Bobby is back, spitting fire and ready to play some music!\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a triumphant yet poignant moment for Bradford, as the 91-year-old and his wife, seven months earlier, on a much less-than-perfect evening, had to flee from the ashes of their Altadena home of over 50 years. The Eaton fire in early January in Southern California claimed many jazz musicians as its victims among the thousands who lost their homes, property and their lives. It was almost the last chapter in Bradford\u2019s storied life: born in Mississippi, growing up in Dallas as a poor kid working at his family\u2019s store after school \u2014 to performing with Ornette Coleman and John Carter as a fellow pioneer of the free-jazz movement and becoming a beloved icon and jazz educator, first at Pasadena City College and then at Pomona College before retiring from teaching in 2021.<\/p>\n

Bradford was awakened that fateful day at 4 a.m. by saxophonist Chuck Manning, who, in addition to being in Bradford\u2019s band for many years, was also his neighbor in Altadena. The fierce winds had shifted dramatically and everyone in the area needed to leave right then. Bradford opened the front door to see his cactus plant on fire in the front yard, as a hail of embers flew past him onto the rug and began to smolder.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe barely got out there with [only] the clothes on our back and our blue bag of medicine,\u201d recalled Bradford. \u201cWe lost everything,\u201d including all his horns, especially his prized cornet, which he desperately wanted to save. \u201cI was gonna run [back] and get my horn,\u201d he recalled. \u201cMy wife said, hold on, no, we got to get out of here.\u201d They drove away, slowly, because the smoke was an obscuring veil that made it difficult to see even the road in front of them. He hadn\u2019t fully realized even then that he would never again see his home. \u201cI said, OK, I\u2019ll be back tomorrow, like in the past whenever [there] was a threat like that. William Roper said the same thing to me \u2026 over the years, probably 10 times that\u2019s happened. There\u2019d be a fire, but it never got to our front door.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roper, the tubist in Bradford\u2019s band, also lost his house that night. Manning\u2019s home somehow was spared but was uninhabitable for many weeks, Manning was able to get his twin brother, Rob (who is the chief engineer for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory based in Altadena), to put Bradford and his wife up for a week, before they embarked on a gypsy-like journey, moving from place to place. \u201cYou know the Ramada Inn on Colorado [Avenue]?\u201d Bradford said. \u201cThey ought to be arrested, it was so bad. Then we were at an Airbnb for a period. [That] wasn\u2019t bad, but we were right next to the freeway.\u201d They found another Airbnb that was so small that \u201cif you were in the kitchen, you bent over, and your butt was in the living room.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bradford, in his usual folksy humor, was recounting his ordeal while sitting in a small but comfortable rehearsal space next to the back house they are renting in nearby Pasadena. It\u2019s the fifth place they have moved to \u2014 the fifth being the charm, so to speak. They happened upon right as it was being listed by the owner. \u201cSo, we came right over here,\u201d he said. \u201cThat was just a big a blessing as the fire was a non-blessing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bradford has also been blessed by an outpouring of generosity to replace what he lost. \u201cI told my wife I\u2019m probably better dressed now than I ever was. People give me clothes that fit, you know?\u201d He also was given a cornet, the exact same model that was destroyed in the fire, thanks to some fellow trumpeters on the East Coast who were able to locate one for him. \u201cThese guys called me \u2026 and I woke up the next day, there\u2019s a FedEx on the front porch with this horn. The first thing I thought is, would I do that for somebody?\u201d Bradford continued. \u201cYou have to ask yourself, why are they doing this? It is just because of the music, or is it just one human being to another? I gave that a serious thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fittingly, for his comeback performance, Bradford decided to revisit the piece he wrote in honor of another who once resided not far from where Bradford lived, someone who also faced and triumphed over tremendous adversity. Jackie Robinson grew up in Pasadena, very close to both neighboring Altadena and the Rose Bowl, where he played football for UCLA. Before that, he attended Pasadena City College, where Bradford would teach some years later. Bradford also identifies with Robinson\u2019s military service, as he himself was also in the military, playing in Air Force bands for four years, in between stints playing in Ornette Coleman\u2019s band. At the Hammer, Bradford began his set with \u201cLieutenant Jackie,\u201d a blues march to commemorate Robinson\u2019s service as an officer.<\/p>\n

After the piece, Bradford spoke to the audience about how Robinson was not only a great athlete but \u201ca great American.\u201d The next day at his home, Bradford clarified why it was important to say that. \u201cYou grow up saying, I want in. I\u2019m born and raised here … I want to be an American, I\u2019m an American too, right? In Mississippi growing up, it\u2019s like you were an unwelcome guest here, in a way. \u2018Can\u2019t we put these guys on a boat and send them back to where [they] came from?\u2019 And I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if you\u2019d ask Trump secretly, \u2018What if we just ship these black people back to Africa?\u2019 [He\u2019d ask] how much would it cost? There\u2019s that thing that\u2019s still here. Here we are all these years later.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robinson\u2019s historic debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers as the first Black man to play major league baseball occurred in 1947, not long after Bradford had already become enamored with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon and Fats Navarro. To Bradford, they, like Robinson, represented a kind of \u201crule breaking\u201d that could perhaps change the status quo of the world Blacks lived in. \u201c[That\u2019s] the thing of the beboppers,\u201d he said. \u201cTheir music, and then themselves. The way they looked at the world, these guys were important for not only playing that wonderful music, but they knew a sort of social stance, you see?\u201d<\/p>\n

The same social stance that Robinson also represented as one of the new great Black American role models. \u201cJazz and baseball \u2014 what could be more American than that other than a hot dog?\u201d asked Bradford. Those things have endured through the tumult of history, as has the 91-year-old cornetist from Altadena who escaped the ashes to rise again, spitting fire and ready to play some more music. DB<\/b><\/p>\n

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