Song:On The Sunny Side Of The Street
Album:Bottoms Up: The Definitive Black & Blue Sessions
Illinois Jacquet was known as The Original Texas Tenor and was credited with inventing the honking sax solo when he was in Lionel Hampton's band. Of course he had a long career in jazz and was very popular in Europe. He was born Oct. 31, 1922 in Broussard, LA and grew up in Houston. His father was a part time band leader and Jacquet played alto sax in his band as a child. His older brother Russell played trumpet and his other brother Linton played drums. Jacquet played professionally in Houston bands as a teen and in 1939, he moved to Los Angeles and became friends with Nat King Cole. He would occasionally sit in with Cole's trio and Cole introduced him to Lionel Hampton. Hampton was putting a big band together and he hired Jacquet and asked him to switch to tenor sax. And it was in 1942 that Hampton recorded his signature song and biggest hit Flying Home. And that was Illinois Jacquet playing the honking tenor sax solo. Supposedly it was the first time a sax had been played like that and was very influential especially on R & B guys like Maceo Parker. Jacquet brought down the house on live shows every night but it wore him out and he left the Hampton band for Cab Calloway in 1943. Arnett Cobb and Dexter Gordon would become equally famous for the Flying Home solo. In 1946 Jacquet replaced Lester Young in the Count Basie band. He went on the Jazz At The Philharmonic tours in the 50s and then he recorded with his own band for decades and like a lot of jazz musicians was very popular in Europe. Jacquet recorded On The Sunny Side Of The Street a few times. There are two albums called Bottoms Up and they are frequently confused including on Allmusic and Amazon. Jacquet recorded an album called Bottoms Up for Prestige in 1968. On The Sunny Side Of The Street isn't on that album. This Bottoms Up was recorded for the French label Black & Blue in 1974 with Milt Buckner on organ, Roland Lobligeois on bass and Jo Jones on drums. Black & Blue re-released it on CD in 2000 with bonus alternate takes but you can only get it from Amazon as an MP3 download. Illinois Jacquet continued to tour and record occasionally until his death on July 22, 2004 at age 81. Here's Illinois Jacquet performing On The Sunny Side Of The Street with Milt Buckner and Jo Jones in France 1975 from the film Jazz En Provence.
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