He chose trumpet because he liked the sound. "Lee Konitz got me to transcribe Louis Armstrong solos,"he says. "I could see parallels between Louis' playing and Miles. The way they phrased, using short phrases, was unbelievably similar."

At 13, Harrell was playing professionally with groups around the Bay Area on both trumpet and piano. He also began sitting in at jam sessions which were attended by saxman Dewey Redman, trumpeter Eddie Henderson and others. He continued to play in public through high school and then moved to the Haight Ashberry district in the mid-'60s.

In 1963, the trumpeter attended Stanford, and it was around this time that his mental problems began to surface. Following a "halfway" suicide attempt, he was diagnosed as borderline schizophrenic and was placed on medication which helped him regain his emotional balance.

While at Stanford, from which he graduated in 1969 with a degree in music composition, Harrell also studied arranging with Tony Baker, who had been a pupil of Herb Pomroy, the noted bandleader-writer who has long taught at Berklee College of Music. "Tony showed me many things, like Duke Ellington's five-note voicings for saxophones,"the trumpeter says. "Also, I saw how you could make points in the melodies with voicings, then connect the points by writing harmonies as a result of melody."

From 1969-1970, Harrell toured with Stan Kenton and Woody Herman, then returned to the Bay Area, where he was a charter member of the fine Latin/jazz group, Azteca. He also played in Malo, a Latin/jazz/rock band led by Jorge Santana, guitarist Carlos Santana's brother. Then in 1973, he was hired by Horace Silver, with whom he played for five years, recording five albums, including Silver n' Brass. "I learned all the elements of music from him,"Harrell says of Silver. "He would always do material with different rhythmic feels--Latin, funk, straight ahead--and I've been influenced by that when I do things on my own. He's always so definite in his comping. I think it helped my rhythmic awareness because he's a master of rhythm."

After leaving Silver in 1977, Harrell, who by then settled in New York City, co-led a big band with the late bassist Sam Jones and worked with Gerry Mulligan, Bill Evans (he played on Evans' final album, We Will Meet Again on Warner Bros.), the Mel Lewis Orchestra, Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra and Lee Konitz' nonet. In 1983, he joined Phil Woods' quintet, recording such albums as Bouquet and Bop Stew for Concord Jazz.

Harrell departed Woods' ensemble in 1989 and has been leading his own bands since. His solo albums have included his debut, the out of print Aurora made in the late '70s, Moon Alley for Criss Cross, Form, Stories, Sail Away and Visions for Contemporary, and Passages and Upswing for Chesky.

These are all splendid albums, and serve as worthy predecessors to Labyrinth, a recording which should further spread the wondrous artistry of Tom Harrell. The album certainly presents what the musician calls his basic goals, to "find beauty in music and in life. What makes life worth living is beauty, and if you create something beautiful, you can help people because it's uplifting and spiritual. That beauty connects us with God, where all music comes from."

"His music just draws you to it. You hear it and you want to play it," offers drummer Bill Goodwin, who produced six of Harrell's previous recordings. There is a "jazz standards" quality to many of Harrell's songs, which have also been sought out by other musicians for their own recordings, including Kenny Barron, Art Farmer, Jim Hall, and Joe Lovano. Harrell's prolific pen has also been counted on for orchestral arrangements of originals, played by the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, the Danish Radio Big Band, Cleveland Jazz Orchestra and most recently, the Dutch Metropole Orchestra. His songs are now available in print, in books published by Jamey Aebersold Jazz, Gerard & Sarzin, and Sher Music Company.

The honors and recognitions accorded to Harrell over the years are many: Down Beat magazine's critics and readers polls for trumpet every year since 1977 and for composer in 1995; JazzTime's critics' choice for his albums, VISIONS, PASSAGES, and UPSWING; JazzTime's readers poll for trumpet (#2 in 1995); Prix Oscar for FORM, awarded by the French Academy of Jazz; and nomination for the 1995 Danish JazzPar prize. But the reward for Harrell of course, is of a personal nature. Seeing himself less a creator of music than as a vehicle through which music can be transmitted, he observes, "Every time I play, I feel that if I'm a good vehicle, I'll be rewarded by being able to experience beauty." After all, as frequent cohort Joe Lovano says, "he doesn't just blow and finger the right note--he becomes each note he plays."