Steve Turre

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Steve Turre
Steve Turre in 2010.jpg
Steve Turre performing in 2010
Background information
Birth name Stephen Johnson Turre
Born September 12, 1948 (age 69)
Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.
Genres Jazz
Occupation(s) Musician, arranger, educator
Instruments Trombone, conch shells
Years active 1970�present
Labels Verve, Telarc, HighNote, Smoke Sessions
Associated acts Sanctified Shells, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Carlos Santana, Ray
Charles
Website steveturre.com
Stephen Johnson "Steve" Turre (born 12 September 1948 Omaha, Nebraska) is an
American jazz trombonist and a pioneer of using seashells as instruments, a
composer, arranger, and educator at the collegiate-conservatory level. For fifty-
four years, has been active in jazz, rock, and Latin jazz � in live venues,
recording studios, television, and cinema production.[1][2]

He has recorded over 20 albums as a bandleader, and appeared on many more as a

contributor or sideman. As a studio musician, Turre is among the most prolific
living jazz trombonists in the world.[3] He has been a member of the Saturday Night
Live Band since 1984.[4][5][6]

Contents [hide]
1 Family and early life
2 Career highlights
3 Education
4 Awards and honors
5 Discography
6 References
7 External links
Family and early life[edit]
Turre is one of four children born to James Boles Turre (1921�1997) and Carmen
Marie (n�e Johnson). His father was of Sicilian ancestry and his mother was of
Mexican ancestry. His three siblings are Michael James Turre (b. 1946), Michele
Anita Turre (born 1953), and Peter Joseph Turre (born 1957). Michael and Peter are
musicians � saxophone-woodwinds and drums, respectively.

Turre was raised in Lafayette, California (San Francisco Bay area). He began
playing trombone at age ten, during his fourth grade in school.[7] In his early
teens, he played in a band with his elder brother, Michael. Although he entered
California State University, Sacramento,[8] on a football scholarship, he studied
music theory there for two years before transferring to the University of North
Texas College of Music, where he studied from 1968 to 1969 and played in a band led
by trumpeter Hannibal Peterson.

Turre has been a resident of Montclair, New Jersey.[9][10]

Turre has been married twice. His first wife was Susan J. Beard, whom he married in
1970 in Dallas, Texas, and divorced in 1972 in San Francisco. His second wife was
cellist Akua Dixon[11][12] (born 1948) from 1978 to 2012, with whom he had two
children.

Career highlights[edit]
L to R: Big Sam Williams, Jeff Albert, Steve Turre, and Kirk Joseph
In 1968, Turre played with Rahsaan Roland Kirk. In 1970 he recorded with Carlos
Santana, and in 1972 he toured with Ray Charles. He has been trombonist for the
Saturday Night Live band since 1985 and has taught jazz trombone at the Manhattan
School of Music since 1988.

For forty-seven years (since 1970), Turre has been an exponent of seashells � conch
in particular � as serious musical instruments.[13] According to Turre,
encouragement came from Kirk who was known for using a vast array of saxophones,
flutes and other instruments. Turre has a collection of shells of various sizes,
most of them picked up during his travels in the Caribbean and elsewhere. The
shells have their mouthpieces carefully cut and are tuned to specific pitches. When
playing them as a soloist, he frequently switches between shells, as each is
limited in its register (the smallest shells, for example, have a practical
register of only a fifth). His largest shell, from the Great Barrier Reef of
Australia, has a range between the D and E below middle C, and was painted by a
Cuban artist. He also leads "Sanctified Shells," which is a "shell choir" made up
of brass players who double on seashell (using shells from Turre's collection,
which he loans out for rehearsals and performances). The group released its first,
eponymous album in 1993.[14][15][16][17] Turre has had a long experience with Latin
jazz and is a skilled player of the cowbell and Venezuelan maracas.

Turre has been a member of the Juilliard School faculty for eleven years � since
2008, and previously from 2001 to 2003.