Miles Davis and Clifford Brown modeled their sound on Theodore 'Fats' Navarro, yet his career lasted less than a decade, he died at 26, and he lay in an unmarked grave in New Jersey for more than half a century. This episode follows his rise from Key West, Florida, where he was born in 1923 to a family of Cuban, African and Chinese descent, grew up bilingual, started piano lessons at six, and picked up trumpet at 13 while also mastering tenor saxophone. After high school in 1941 he joined Sol Albright's band in Orlando, played Midwest territory bands like Snookum Russell's, where he influenced a young J.J. Johnson, and worked the big-band assembly line for Andy Kirk, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton and Billy Eckstine, whose band served as a stealth laboratory for bebop.

Settling in New York in 1946, he dominated small groups with Kenny Clarke ...