Artist: Jean-Baptiste Illinois Jackquet

Jean-Baptiste Illinois Jacquet was an American  jazz tenor saxophonist, best remembered for his solo on "Flying Home", critically recognized as the first R&B saxophone solo. 

Although he was a pioneer of the honking tenor saxophone that became a regular feature of jazz playing and a hallmark of early rock and roll, Jacquet was a skilled and melodic improviser, both on up-tempo tunes and ballads. He doubled on the  bassoon, one of only a few jazz musicians to use the instrument. 

At 15, Jacquet began playing with the Milton Larkin Orchestra, a Houston-area dance band. In 1939, he moved to Los Angeles, California, where he met Nat King Cole, and Jacquet would sit in with the trio on occasion. In 1940, Cole introduced Jacquet to Lionel Hampton who had returned to California and was putting together a big band. Hampton wanted to hire Jacquet, but asked the young Jacquet to switch to tenor saxophone. 

In 1942, at age 19, Jacquet soloed on the Hampton Orchestra's recording of "Flying Home", one of the first times a honking tenor sax was heard on record.  The record became a hit. The song immediately became the climax for the live shows and Jacquet became exhausted from having to "bring down the house" every night. The solo was built to weave in and out of the arrangement and continued to be played by every saxophone player who followed Jacquet in the band, including Arnett Cobb and Dexter Gordon, who achieved almost as much attention as Jacquet in playing it. It is one of the few jazz solos to have been memorized and played very much the same way by everyone who played the song. He left the Hampton band in 1943 and joined Cab Calloway's Orchestra.