This Week in Texas Music History, Fort Worth jazz royalty takes flight in California.
On September 20, 1970, two Fort Worth musicians and their group, the Firebirds, took over the Monterey Jazz Festival stage. The Firebirds’ alto saxophonist and flautist Prince Lasha and percussionist Charles Moffett were joined by fate, both born in Fort Worth in the same month, September 1929.
They had been collaborators since their days as classmates at Terrell High School and their band, the Jam Jivers, which also happened to include future jazz revolutionary Ornette Coleman. Coleman and Lasha had even bought their first instruments together after saving up tips from waiting tables at the Texas Hotel. Like many of his DFW friends and contemporaries, including Fathead Newman and King Curtis, Lasha left Texas, making his way to the West Coast where he formed a partnership with saxophonist Sonny Simmons.
In 1962, Simmons and Lasha recorded their debut album, The Cry!, for Contemporary Records before embarking for New York, where they’d perform and record with major figures like Eric Dolphy, Elvin Jones, and Clifford Jordan. Meanwhile, Charles Moffett worked with Archie Shepp and Charles Tyler, as well as with Ornette Coleman in his mid-1960s trio.
In 1967, Lasha and Simmons co-led another session for Contemporary that produced the classic Firebirds LP, featuring Moffett on drums, Bobby Hutcherson on vibraphone, and Buster Williams on bass. Lasha reassembled the group for this 1970 Monterey appearance, one of three live California dates with the Firebirds, which were recorded and later released on Lasha’s own Birdseye label.
Sources:
Maria Golia. Ornette Coleman: The Territory and the Adventure. London: Reaktion Books, 2020.
Bradley Shreve and Laurie Jasinski in Laurie E. Jasinski, Gary Hartman, Casey Monahan, and Ann T. Smith, eds. The Handbook of Texas Music. Second Edition. Denton, TX: Texas State Historical Association, 2012.
Media: Prince Lasha and Woody Shaw in Serbia, 1987
