Results for "saxophone, alto"

Charles McPherson

Born: July 24, 1939

For more than 60 years, saxophonist Charles McPherson has been one of the most expressive and highly regarded voices in jazz. His rich musical style, rooted in the blues and bebop, has influenced and inspired generations of musicians and listeners. McPherson was born in Joplin, MO, on July 24, 1939, and he developed a love for music at a young age. As a child, he began experimenting at the piano whenever one was available. He also attended summer concerts in Joplin that featured territory bands from the Midwest and Southwest. These concerts made a strong impression on McPherson, who was particularly enamored with the sound and shape of the saxophone. McPherson moved to Detroit in 1948 at age 9

Jackie McLean

Born: May 17, 1932

John Lenwood (Jackie) McLean was an alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader and educator, born in New York City. His father, John Sr., who died in 1939, played guitar in Tiny Bradshaw's orchestra. After his father's death, his musical education was continued by his godfather, by his stepfather, who owned a record store, and by several noted teachers. He also received informal tutoring from neighbours Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, and Charlie Parker. During high school he played in a band with Kenny Drew, Sonny Rollins, and Andy Kirk Jr. (the tenor saxophonist son of Andy Kirk). He recorded with Miles Davis, on Davis' Dig album, when he was 19 years old

Jimmy Lyons

Born: December 1, 1933

Imagine what Sonny Stitt might have sounded like had he embraced free jazz after mastering bebop, and one can probably conjure a pretty good mental impression of Jimmy Lyons. Like Stitt, Lyons was enamoured of Charlie Parker's style, particularly in terms of phrasing. Lyons' slippery, bop-derived rhythms and melodic contours lent his improvisations a Charlie "Bird" Parker-like cast, even as his performance contexts were more harmonically free. Lyons made his reputation playing with pianist Cecil Taylor, with whom he became inextricably linked. He was a near-constant presence in Taylor's bands from 1960 until the saxophonist's death in 1986

Preston Love

Born: April 26, 1921

Hailing out of Omaha, Nebraska, Preston Love started on the sax at age 15, and by 22 was a member of the Count Basie Orchestra during the 1940's. He went on to form his own group, the Preston Love Orchestra, and acquired quite a reputation as leader of the West Coast Motown Orchestra where he played with, among others, Ray Charles, the Supremes, the Temptations, and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. The flutist-saxophonist grew up the youngest of nine children, in a predominantly black North Omaha neighborhood. He listened to his idols (especially Earle Warren) on the family radio and phonograph, taught himself to play the sax his brother had brought home, and learned Warren's solos note for note, laying recordings over and over again

Prince Lasha

Born: September 10, 1929

To many jazz fans, the name of Prince Lasha will be an unknown quantity. The reason for that is in part that he hasn’t too many records out. Taking the time since the early sixties, when he started to belong to the forefront of jazz, the number of his records as a leader has remained small and even as a sideman he had little covering. The one piece that will still be on the mind of jazz fans already around in the sixties is a composition entitled ”The Cry”. Lasha recorded it in 1962 in a quintet version also featuring Sonny Simmons for the famous West Coast company Contemporary

Lee Konitz

Born: October 13, 1927

Konitz is sometimes regarded as the preeminent cool jazz saxophonist, because he performed and recorded with Claude Thornhill, Lennie Tristano (both often cited as important cool jazz proponents of the mid 1940s), and with Miles Davis on his epochal Birth of the Cool, which gave the form its name.

Konitz has also been repeatedly noted as one of the few jazz saxophonists of the late 1940s and 1950s who did not seem imitative of the massively influential Charlie Parker.

In the early 1950s, Konitz recorded and toured with Stan Kenton's orchestra.

In 1961, he recorded Motion with Elvin Jones on drums and Sonny Dallas on bass

Charlie Kennedy

Born: July 2, 1927

Charlie Kennedy, a talented alto saxophonist who was best known for his association with Gene Krupa's big band. The best years of Kennedy's career were the 1940s, when he played with Louis Prima's big band. His fine tenor solo can be heard on Prima's 1943 version of "The White Cliffs of Dover."

He moved on to lead his own quartet before joining Krupa's big band from 1945 to 1948 and was the featured soloist on a number of recordings, including "How High the Moon," "Disc Jockey Jump" and "I Should Have Kept on Dreaming."

While living in the East, Kennedy also played with a number of other leading bands, including groups led by Charlie Ventura, Flip Phillips and Chico O'Farrill.

After moving to the West Coast in 1950, he played with Med Flory, Bill Holman's orchestra and, most notably, Terry Gibbs' Dream Band from 1959 to 1962.

He was also an active studio musician, playing on popular movies, including My Fair Lady and West Side Story.

A native of Staten Island, N.Y., he was born Charles Sumner Kennedy on July 2, 1927

Louis Jordan

Born: July 8, 1908

At the height of his career, in the 1940s, bandleader and alto saxophonist Louis Jordan scored 18 Number One hit records. Jordan exhibited a brilliant sense of showmanship that brought audiences first-rate entertainment without any loss of musical integrity. He performed songs that appealed to millions of black and white listeners. Able to communicate between these two audiences, Jordan emerged as one of the first successful crossover artists of American popular music. Born on July 8, 1908, in Brinkley, Arkansas, Jordan was the son of Jim Jordan, a bandleader and music teacher. Under the tutelage of his father, Jordan began studying clarinet at age seven, then saxophone

John Jenkins

Born: January 3, 1931

John Jenkins is from Chicago where he was born on January 3, 1931 and has been another pupil of the famous Capt. Walter Dyett of Du Sable High. Johnny Griffin, Clifford Jordan and John Gilmore were among his schoolmates. Jenkins began on clarinet and six month later switched to alto. His baptism of fire came in 1949 at the Roosevelt College sessions promoted by Joe Segal and he continued to play at these swinging affairs during his next seven years in Chicago. He also played at local clubs like the Bee Hive. In 1955, John did a week apiece in Chicago and Cleveland with Art Farmer when Gigi Gryce was unable to be present

Hilton Jefferson

Born: July 30, 1903

A reliable and invaluable mainstay in the best black bands of the swing era, Hilton Jefferson raised the standard of every horn section he played in. His first gigs were playing banjo for the Julian Arthur Orchestra at the Hay Theater in Philadelphia in 1925. He then switched to the alto sax and by the ‘30s he was playing with many bands in New York City, including Claude Hopkins, Chick Webb and King Oliver. Later he played with McKinney's Cotton Pickers, Benny Carter and Fletcher Henderson. In the 40s he played with Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and Cab Calloway, with whom he spent the greater part of the decade