Artist: Gene Ammons
Gene Ammons (April 14, 1925 – August 6, 1974), was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. The son of boogie-woogie pianist Albert Ammons, Gene Ammons is remembered for his accessible music, steeped in soul and R&B.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, at age 18, he went on the road with trumpeter King Kolax's band. In 1944, he joined the band of Billy Eckstine (who bestowed on him the nickname "Jug" when straw hats ordered for the band did not fit), playing alongside Charlie Parker and later Dexter Gordon.
Performances from this period include "Blowin' the Blues Away," featuring a saxophone duel between Ammons and Gordon. After 1947, when Eckstine became a solo performer, Ammons then led a group, including Miles Davis and Sonny Stitt, that performed at Chicago's Jumptown Club. In 1949, Ammons replaced Stan Getz as a member of Woody Herman's Second Herd, and then in 1950 formed a duet with Sonny Stitt.
He recorded as a leader for Mercury (1947–1949), Aristocrat (1948–1950), Chess (1950–1951), Prestige (1950–1952), Decca (1952), and United (1952–1953). For the rest of his career, he was affiliated with Prestige. The 1950s were a prolific period for Ammons, and produced some acclaimed recordings, such as The Happy Blues (1956). Musicians who played in his groups, apart from Stitt, included Donald Byrd, Jackie McLean, John Coltrane, Kenny Burrell, Mal Waldron, Art Farmer, and Duke Jordan.
Ammons had the first of two records released by Leonard Chess on the newly-formed Chess Records label in 1950, titled "My Foolish Heart" (Chess 1425); Muddy Waters was the second record, "Rolling Stone" (Chess 1426). Both records were released simultaneously.
Ammons and Von Freeman were the founders of the Chicago school of tenor saxophone. Ammons's style of playing showed influences from Lester Young, as well as Ben Webster. These artists had helped develop the sound of the tenor saxophone to higher levels of expressiveness. Ammons, together with Dexter Gordon and Sonny Stitt, helped integrate their developments with the emerging "vernacular" of the bebop movement, and the chromaticism and rhythmic variety of Charlie Parker is evident in his playing.
While adept at the technical aspects of bebop, in particular its love of harmonic substitutions, Ammons stayed in touch with the commercial blues and R&B of his day. For example, in 1950 the saxophonist's recording of "My Foolish Heart" made Billboard Magazine's black pop charts. The soul jazz movement of the mid-1960s, often using the combination of tenor saxophone and Hammond B3 electric organ, counts him as a founder.
With a thicker, warmer tone than Stitt or Gordon, Ammons could exploit a vast range of textures on the instrument, vocalizing it in ways that anticipated later artists such as Stanley Turrentine, Houston Person, and even Archie Shepp.
Further information about Gene Ammons is found here and here.
This content was excerpted from the Wikipedia article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Ammons, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).
Gene Ammons - Just Jazz (1971)
Gene Ammons: Videos
Gene Ammons "Didn't We" - on Just Jazz 1970
George Freeman with Gene Ammons on TV (1971) - Jungle Strut