Juan Tizol (born 22 January 1900 in San Juan, Puerto Rico; died 23 April 1984 in Inglewood, California) was a jazz musician.
Juan Tizol, born in 1908 according to other sources, played valve trombone. Tizol came to the USA from San Juan in 1920 to work with Marie Lucas at the Howard Theatre in Washington. When this band lost its regular engagement, Tizol quickly found a new job with Duke Ellington. Although he was never featured as a soloist with Ellington as often as his colleagues, his valve trombone helped Ellington to create a new sound for his orchestra, as the technical advantages of a valve trombone compared to the slide trombone meant that Tizol was often given the saxophonists' sheet music. Ellington also wrote difficult passages for Tizol - technically for slide trombones. His tone is therefore described as soft and sweet, sometimes 'cloying'.
Tizol himself hardly ever improvised, but his most important contributions were as a section player and as a composer and arranger (e.g. Caravan, Perdido). He can be heard on the Ellington records with a Latin American flavour, which he wrote himself or with Ellington, such as Moonlight Fiesta 1935, Caravan 1937, Pyramid 1938, Conga Brava 1940, Bakiff and Moon Over Cuba 1941.
In 1944, Tizol left Ellington and performed sporadically with Woody Herman's band until he was hired by Harry James, with whom he played for seven years. In 1951, Tizol returned to Ellington for a short period. The rest of the time, until his death in Los Angeles in 1984, Tizol worked for many different bandleaders and also singers such as Frank Sinatra and Nat "King" Cole.
