Flying Home

Hello again!  Sorry for the sporadic-ness of my posts, for those of you who actually read Music Zombie.  There's been a lot going on.

Anyway, here's another post about saxophone players.  I know I've become a bit saxophone-centric lately, but for so many years I was so clarinet-centric that I'm trying to balance myself out.  Just roll with it.  The saxophone player for the day is Jean Baptiste Illinois Jacquet, or just Illinois Jacquet.  Born in Broussard, Louisiana in 1922, he made his first recording at age 19.  Playing with vibraphonist Lionel Hampton's band in 1942, he recorded the now famous solo to the tune Flying Home.  This solo became his signature and helped to further pull the saxophone away from "legitimacy" as a classical instrument.  In other words, he drove the saxophone's career arc jazz directly into rock and roll and rhythm and blues.  Through the use of harmonics, he also expanded the range of the horn by two octaves (a la Lenny Pickett over the Saturday Night Live opening credits).

He performed and recorded with Hampton, Cab Calloway, and Count Basie, and with his own band, too.  In the 1960s, he learned, and mastered, the bassoon and recorded on that with Jo Jones and Milt Buckner.  Between 1982 and 1984, he held the distinction of being the first jazz musician to serve a long-term residency at Harvard University.  In 1992, Jacquet and his Big Band played for Bill Clinton's Inaugural Ball.  It was one of Jacquet's tenors that the President jammed on to C Jam Blues.  In 2000, he was presented with Lincoln Center's Award for Artistic Excellence.  He was the fifth person to be honored with this award.  Two months before his death in 2004, he was given an Honorary Doctorate of Music, awarded by the Juilliard School.   "This is the happiest day of my life,"  he remarked.

He contributed a beautiful rendition of Harlem Nocturne, and his rock and roll influence can be heard on that famous Flying Home solo.  I'm going to go listen some more.  You should too!