Johnny Carisi born 23 February 1922

John E. Carisi (February 23, 1922 – October 3, 1992) was an American trumpeter and composer. 

Johnny Carisi was born Hasbrouck Heights New Jersey. A self taught musician he began his career in the bands of Carl Hoff and Babe Russin. In late 1942 he  joined Glenn Miller's US Air Force band and significantly began to sit in at jam sessions held at Minton's night club. Minton's was regarded as the birthplace of be-bop, and musicians like Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Kenny Clarke and Charlie Christian, all young innovators, were regular players in the sessions. 

Leaving the Miller band in 1946, Carisi concentrated on arranging, and his scores were used by the orchestras of Charlie Barnet and Ray McKinley. He played trumpet with Claude Thornhill's Orchestra during 1949-50.  In 1956 Carisi scored all the themes on an album by the trombonist Urbie Green's big band. The music was supposed to be aimed at dancers, but Carisi's scores and fine solos by Green, Al Cohn and Joe Wilder, turned it instead into a potent jazz collection. He followed Green's album in 1959 with the music for a set by Harry Galbraith's Guitar Choir and 10 years later with a distinctive collection for the trumpeter Marvin Stamm. 

Never a major soloist, Carisi His minor-blues composition "Israel" was quickly recognized as a unique jazz classic, after it was recorded by Miles Davis at the sessions which later became known as the Birth of the Cool. Other notable versions have been recorded by Bill Evans, and the Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz Band. Another well known Carisi piece, "Springsville", was recorded by Miles Davis, as arranged by Gil Evans on the album, Miles Ahead. 

                            

            Here's Johnny Carisi's Jazz Workshop - Israel

Although he worked fairly steadily as a writer, Johnny Carisi recorded only a few albums under his own name. He had an opportunity to remake "Israel" in 1956 for a Bluebird set not released until the CD era, and he utilized a "Guitar Choir" in an unusual reworking of the music from Showboat (playing trumpet on "Nobody Else But Me").

Carisi was one of the trumpeters on a 1960 State Department tour of South East Asia and the Middle East. His experiences on the tour, notably at the Taj Mahal, inspired his compositions for Into the Hot album which  he released in 1961 on Impulse with Cecil Taylor. 

In 1968 he wrote the arrangements for trumpeter Marvin Stamm's Machinations album. Perceptive listeners could hear Carisi between innings at Yankee Stadium, playing in the dixieland band, a form of employment that his contemporaries shunned but that he loved; he was a regular at Jimmy Ryan's club on West 52d Street, and performed with Jim Chapin's group, the Jazz Tree. He also performed with the band leader Loren Shoenberg and arranged for Mr. Roach. 

Carisi continued to bestride both jazz and classical fields, with occasional forays into ballet and pop music. He composed a quartet for saxophones and a concerto for tuba on the one hand and scored music for Jerry Lewis's television show on the other. He took advantage of a Guggenheim Fellowship to compose a suite and spent a good part of the 1970's teaching at the Manhattan School of Music, a department of the University of New York until 1984. 

Carisi had a warm, gorgeous sound. He was harmonically sophisticated, and his solos, with a tight vibrato, were unceasingly intelligent. He was playing and composing until two days before he entered the Mount Sinai Hosptal in New York for open-heart surgery, where he died on October 3, 1992, at the age of 70. 

(Edited from Wikipedia, AllMusic, The Independent & Phi Schapp Jazz)