Born on April 14, 1925, Ammons was a second-generation jazz musician from Chicago, who earned consideration for his fiery work in Billy Eckstine’s large band, and his staged duels with fellow saxophonists.
DAVE DAVIES, HOST:
That is FRESH AIR. Jazz tenor saxophonist Gene Ammons was born 100 years in the past on April 14, 1925. Ammons was a second-generation jazz musician from Chicago who earned early consideration for his fiery work in Billy Eckstine’s large band and his staged duels with fellow saxophonists. Jazz historian Kevin Whitehead says Gene Ammons was one of many music’s nice and hottest saxophone stylists.
(SOUNDBITE OF GENE AMMONS’ “BEEZY”)
KEVIN WHITEHEAD, BYLINE: Gene Ammons tearing it up on “Beezy” in 1952. The tenor saxophonist had come up in Billy Eckstine’s mid-Forties large band, whose tough syncopations and superior harmonies recognized them with a brand new model of jazz known as bebop. Most boppers performed intricate solo traces, however Gene Ammons favored large gestures and scooping bluesy phrases – the higher to highlight is large sound. He bounces off a basic bebop riff prefer it’s a trampoline on Eckstine’s “Oo Bop Sh’Bam.”
(SOUNDBITE OF BILLY ECKSTINE’S “OO BOP SH’BAM”)
WHITEHEAD: Born in Chicago, Gene Ammons had studied with the celebrated highschool trainer who educated scores of jazz musicians, Walter Dyett. Gene had had a head begin because the son of the good boogie-woogie pianist Albert Ammons. Father and Son recorded collectively in 1947, close to the beginning of Gene’s profession and the tip of Albert’s. Their contrasting approaches to the blues mark a generational shift to a swifter new fashion for the atomic age. That is “Hiroshima.”
(SOUNDBITE OF ALBERT AMMONS’ “HIROSHIMA”)
WHITEHEAD: Gene Ammons’ drive and large sound made him a prepared competitor in pleasant battles with different tenor gamers – with Dexter Gordon and Billy Eckstine’s band after which with Sonny Stitt, on and off for many years, beginning round 1950.
(SOUNDBITE OF GENE AMMONS & SONNY STITT ALL STARS’ “BLUES UP AND DOWN (TAKE 3)”)
WHITEHEAD: On his personal within the ’50s, Gene Ammons made loads of up-tempo stompers, however he was additionally a grasp of tender ballads. His large tone was variable. He might bleat or blat like a rhythm and blues honker or caress a word at a whisper. His grand gestures, sudden eruptions and Lester Younger-inspired repeated notes have been particularly efficient at gradual tempos, the place he might actually linger over a phrase.
(SOUNDBITE OF GENE AMMONS’ “OLD FOLKS”)
WHITEHEAD: Gene Ammons on “Previous People” from 1952. In that decade, recording engineers began making his sound much more placing by bathing it in reverb. Within the studio, he’d think about that echo chamber impact, giving particular person notes room to ring out.
(SOUNDBITE OF GENE AMMONS’ “CANADIAN SUNSET”)
WHITEHEAD: “Canadian Sundown,” 1962. Gene Ammons recorded loads that 12 months, however six years would move earlier than he’d document once more. Ammons was a heroin person who spent a lot of the Sixties in an Illinois jail. On launch, he bought proper again to work, resuming his bouts with Sonny Stitt and his recording profession. The music had modified in his absence, with new electrical devices and pop influences. Gene Ammons carried on as normal. He was a populist already.
(SOUNDBITE OF GENE AMMONS’ “A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME”)
WHITEHEAD: Gene Ammons died in 1974 of most cancers and pneumonia at age 49 – the up-tempo bruiser who performed a number of the prettiest ballads round. His daring, painterly strokes, dramatic use of house and feisty perspective might make him sound greater than life-size at any tempo.
(SOUNDBITE OF GENE AMMONS’ “TILL THERE WAS YOU”)
DAVIES: Kevin Whitehead is the creator of “New Dutch Swing,” “Why Jazz?” and “Play The Manner You Really feel.” On tomorrow’s present, New Yorker employees author Sarah Stillman experiences on the stunning quantity of people that died of hunger or dehydration in county jails, usually mentally ailing folks arrested for minor crimes. She finds lots of the deaths happen in counties the place non-public corporations are offering correctional well being companies. I hope you’ll be able to be part of us.
To maintain up with what’s on the present and get highlights of our interviews, observe us on Instagram at @nprfreshair. FRESH AIR’s government producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Briger. Our interviews and critiques are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the present. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I am Dave Davies.
(SOUNDBITE OF GENE AMMONS’ “TILL THERE WAS YOU”)
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