Born in Trenton, New Jersey on July 3, 1926, Johnny Coles was a jazz and R&B
trumpeter. He was born in New Jersey, but grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
where he taught himself to pay the trumpet. He spent the early part of his
career playing in R&B bands led by Eddie Vinson (1948-1951), Bull Moose Jackson
(1952), and Earl Bostic (1955-56). Johnny Coles spent the rest of the 1950s
playing with James Moody and the Gil Evans Orchestra. During the late 1950s and
early 1960s, he recorded with a variety of artists including Tina Brooks, Grant
Green, Charles Mingus, Duke Pearson, ...