Killian's playing in the bop genre is sometimes criticized. It is said that he had more interest in the music than the technique to play it, but make no mistake about it, he had plenty of technique. He replaced Cat Anderson in the Ellington band, which is sort of like riding in a horse directly after John Wayne. His squealing high pitch trumpet playing was featured more prominently during his 1942-1946 stint with the Lionel Hampton band, as this grinning vibraphonist loved shocking musical effects and blasting the audience's heads off with, among other things, high note trumpet playing. Ellington of course created music of a more sophisticated nature and had many uses for Killian, although not particularly as a soloist. The Duke did compose a tune based on Killian's style entitled Killian's Lick, a nice tribute for a journeyman trumpeter who came out of the wave of southern jazzmen in the '30s. Besides his jazz work, he also worked behind Texas blues legend T-Bone Walker, powerful vocalist Paul Robeson and demented jivester Slim Gaillard. He also had several of compositions recorded by artists such as Georgie Auld and Serge Chaloff. Count Basie liked Killian's pre-digital composition 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, enough to record it nine times, appropriately enough.
The story of the trumpeter's tragic murder brings up the interesting topic of landlords being driven over the edge by tenants that are musicians, since it was after all his landlord that did Killian in. The fact that the victim was a high note trumpeter might help make a credible case for justifiable homicide on the part of the landlord, but the fact of the matter is the landlord was psychotic. But perhaps he got that way from having a high note trumpeter practicing in his building. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi