Local jazz legend Bobby Bradford performs his tribute to Jackie Robinson

In 2019, the late baseball historian Terry Cannon asked Bobby Bradford to compose a musical piece for the 100th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s birth.

“I said, 'OK, well I'll write a suite. I'll make each of the segments in the suite connected to a facet of Jackie Robinson's life that I particularly like,'” Bradford said.

Bobby Bradford (center) and his band.

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Ramon Garibaldi

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Courtesy Bobby Bradford

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He called the piece "Stealin’ Home: a tribute to Jackie Robinson" and named the segments “Lieutenant Jackie,” “Up from the Minors” and “High and Inside.”

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Bradford, who plays the cornet, became nationally known in the 1970s when he collaborated with jazz great Ornette Coleman. The album Science Fiction cemented Coleman and Bradford’s playing as avant garde “free jazz.”

Bradford’s been an educator for much of his professional life, teaching jazz history at Pomona College and Pasadena City College.

This has been a tough year for the 91-year-old. He lost his home in Altadena in the Eaton Fire, including his favorite cornet that he’d played for 32 years.

Jazz educator and musician Bobby Bradford.

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Courtesy Hammer Museum

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“I lost all of my music textbooks, all of my 10-inch LPs, like the very earliest of Charlie Parker and people like that, that I had all these years,” he said.

But music endures. Bradford will be playing the rarely-performed Robinson tribute as part of the Hammer Museum’s JazzPop series at 8 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 14. More information on the series can be found here.