It was quite a shock when I heard late last year of trumpet player Stacy Rowles' death from complications of a car accident. Stacy played on my first record as a leader, Angelica, in 1987. In the mid-80s, I was playing with Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra (West Coast). Initially, Bobby Bradford (along with Oscar Brashear) was in the band's trumpet section, but when Bobby chose to depart, Charlie - wisely, to my mind - chose Stacy to replace him. Why wisely? Because, like Bobby, Stacy had a more intimate, melodic approach which eschewed loud, brassy histrionics. Anyway, she and I instantly became friendly from the first gig she did, which was in San Francisco, as I recall. It didn't hurt that her father, Jimmy Rowles, was and is one of my musical heroes. His piano playing and composing inspire me to this day.
Not long after that first LMO gig, my friends Eric Von Essen and Jeff Gauthier went with me to hear Jimmy and Stacy play in some Hollywood hotel lounge (actually, it was practically the lobby). Eric sat in on chromatic harmonica, and it wasn't long after that that Eric became Jimmy's first call bassist. Jeff and I even worked together to produce a CD for the Delos label by Jimmy and Stacy called Looking Back, with Eric on bass. Collaborations with these three continued for years, until Eric and Jimmy departed this Earth. Now Stacy is gone, too.
Stacy's trumpet sound was always understated and warm, melodic and relaxed. In this way, she was never going to be "cutting edge" or "intense". Her aesthetic was of the purest jazz sort, informed by the likes of Art Farmer and Thad Jones. I always thought of her as being the trumpet/flugelhorn version of someone like Paul Desmond, all inviting and logical melodic invention infused with alluring tone. As such, I am certain that survival was a struggle for her, as our society does not readily reward such subtlety. Like "Dad", Stacy also sang on occasion, her voice an uncanny counterpart to her horn. Stacy Rowles was a fine human and a remarkable, mostly unheralded musician. Seek out her voice in the lexicon of jazz music. It is a voice of timeless warmth and clarity.
