DUNBAR, THEODORE [TED]

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Cody Brown

DUNBAR, THEODORE [TED] (1937–1998). LISTEN TO THIS ARTIST

Ted Dunbar, jazz (/handbook/online/articles/xbjyb)
guitarist, composer, and instructor, was born Earl
Theodore Dunbar in Port Arthur, Texas, on
January 17, 1937. At the age of seven, Dunbar
became enamored with jazz music after
attending a Duke Ellington concert with his
mother. Three years later, Dunbar was playing
guitar and trumpet professionally around Port
Arthur. He attended Texas Southern University
in the late 1950s and studied pharmacy, all the
while, honing his jazz skills and playing with
notable performers Arnett Cobb
(/handbook/online/articles/fcobs) , Joe Turner, and Don Wilkerson
(/handbook/online/articles/fwibv) .

After graduation, Dunbar got a job at Hook’s Drug Store in Indianapolis, Indiana.
By this time he was married and had a daughter, and the family moved from Texas
to Indiana. It was in Indianapolis where he first heard popular jazz guitarist Wes
Montgomery perform, and this played a role in Dunbar’s decision to relocate there.
Montgomery became a major influence on Dunbar’s own style of jazz guitar, which
included his “soft” approach using his thumb rather than a pick. Montgomery
mentored Dunbar and occasionally asked the younger musician to fill in for him
when Montgomery was on tour. While living in Indianapolis, Dunbar also studied
with Dave Baker, from whom he learned to play modal jazz.

In 1966 Dunbar moved to New York City. He still worked at a pharmacy but played
jazz at night and on weekends in various orchestras and on studio recordings. He
appeared on numerous artists’ records, including Gloria Coleman, David “Fathead”
Newman, Gil Evans, Lou Donaldson, Frank Foster, Charles Mingus, Tony
Williams’s Lifetime, Sonny Rollins, McCoy Tyner, and Ron Carter, to name a few.
Dunbar also played guitar in Billy Taylor’s Jazzmobile Project, the New Jazz
Repertory Company, and the National Jazz Ensemble. While teaching in the
Jazzmobile Workshop Project, Dunbar’s students included Kevin Eubanks, leader
for many years of the house band for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Dunbar also
taught Rodney Jones, a guitarist for the house band on The Rosie O’Donnell Show.

In 1972 Dunbar was hired as a jazz professor at Livingston College (Rutgers

University) where he worked to develop undergraduate and master’s degrees in jazz
performance. He also worked at a pharmacy part-time while performing jazz with
the Rutgers Livingston Jazz Professors. Dunbar toured the United States and abroad
and played jazz concerts and festivals at such notable venues as the Kennedy Center
and Carnegie Hall. Dunbar published four books on jazz harmony, A System of Tonal
Convergence for Improvisers, Composers and Arrangers (1975), The
Interrelationship of Chords, Scales and Fingerboard of Each one of the Twelve
Tonalities of the Guitar (1978), The II-V Cadence as a Creative Guitar Learning
Device (1979), and New Approaches to Jazz Guitar, Expanded (2nd) Edition (1992).

Dunbar also recorded twenty-five original compositions under his own name for the
Xanadu and Muse record labels. Among his albums as bandleader were Opening
Remarks (1978), Jazz Guitarist (1982), and Gentle Time Alone (1994). Most notable
among these is Dunbar’s 1982 record, Jazz Guitarist, which simply included Dunbar
on guitar performing complex piano arrangements. Dunbar was the recipient of
Downbeat Magazine’s Outstanding Guitarist Award, and he was nominated for
Ebony Magazine’s Black Music Poll of Outstanding Musicians. He continued to
teach at Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies until 1998, when he died of a stroke on
May 29, 1998, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Ted Dunbar was survived by
daughters, Anita Kelly of Plano, Texas, and Natalie Dunbar of Pasadena, California,
as well as seven grandchildren and a great-grandchild. He is one of the music
legends featured in his native Port Arthur’s Museum of the Gulf Coast Music Hall
of Fame (/handbook/online/articles/lbg03) .

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

All Music Guide (www.allmusic.com), accessed February 16, 2011. Todd Collins
and Michael Fitzgerald, comps., “Ted Dunbar Discography” (1993),
JazzDiscography.com (http://www.jazzdiscography.com/Artists/Dunbar/index.html),
accessed February 16, 2011. Museum of the Gulf Coast: Ted Dunbar
(http://www.museumofthegulfcoast.org/personalities-music-legends-ted-
dunbar.html), accessed October 10, 2010. New York Times, June 6, 1998. Larry
Ridley, “Re: Ted Dunbar (October issue, no. 42, p.11),” AllAboutJazz.com
(http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=19932), accessed February 16,
2011.

What (#)

The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the
preferred citation for this article.

Handbook of Texas Online, Cody Brown, "DUNBAR, THEODORE [TED],"

accessed August 22, 2019,
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fdu69.
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