Jazz?  Think New Orleans.  Or, Council Bluffs.

   A pair of local identical twins recorded over a hundred songs and were a significant part of the jazz music world in the middle of the Twentieth Century.  Born in Council Bluffs in 1928, a divorce, death of their father, and a move to Phoenix by their grandparents led to Art and Addison Farmer not staying in their home town all that long, which probably is why their names are not well known locally.  But in jazz circles, it’s a different story.

   The twins joined a dance band while in high school in Phoenix and before their senior year were lured west by the thriving jazz scene developing in Los Angeles.  

   Art was a trumpeter, Addison a bassist.  Addison made his first recording as a sideman with trumpeters Miles Davis and John “Dizzy” Gillespie along with Charlie “Bird” Parker on the saxophone.  Art made his first recording with Kansas City legend Jay McShann in 1948.

   Art settled in New York in 1953 where he played with the Lionel Hampton band, working with Quincy Jones, Thelonius Monk, Charles Mingus, and other well known names of the era.  Addison followed his brother to New York and organized a quintet.  He also appeared in the films “I Want to Live” and “The Subterraneans.”

In 1959 the brothers brought their talents together by organizing the Jazztet, a hard-bop sextet.  

   Addison’s life and blossoming career were cut short by brain aneurysm in 1963.  The loss of his brother was hard on Art.  After a few years he started afresh by moving to Vienna, Austria.  He joined the Austrian Radio Orchestra, married a Viennese woman, and bought a home in Austria.

  In seeking a sound that was not as sharp as a trumpet yet not as mellow as the flugelhorn Art had a hybrid instrument custom made he called the flumpet.  Art continued to play with a variety of post-bop groups in Europe, becoming well known as one of the world’s most melodic trumpet players and revered for his unique improvisational ability.  He also composed a dozen original songs.  To honor him on his 70th birthday, the President of Austria awarded Art Farmer the country’s highest award for art.  In 1999 he was presented with the American Jazz Master Lifetime Award by the National Endowment for the Arts.

   Art died of a heart attack in October, 1999.

   In 2002 Council Bluffs hosted the “Addison and Art Farmer Jazz Festival.”  Though plans to make it an annual event didn’t come to fruition, the event attracted a large crowd to Lake Manawa State Park to hear a collection of the areas best jazz musicians.