Illinois Jacquet

Illinois Jacquet

Illinois Jacquet was a jazz star after his first major solo - on Flyin' Home with the Lionel Hampton band in 1942. His "honkin' tenor" sound was widely emulated in other genres, especially rock and R&B.  Born in Louisiana in 1922, Jacquet grew up in Houston, Texas, son of a part-time bandleader.  Although he started on alto saxophone, he would play predominately tenor for most of his career, occasionally doubling on bassoon.  After journeyman service with Hampton, Cab Calloway and Norman Granz' Jazz at the Philharmonic, Jacquet moved to New York in 1946 and joined the Basie band, a replacement for Lester Young.   Recording as both leader and sideman through the 1950s, he changed his focus to Europe where he worked extensively in the 1960s and 70s.  Returning to the US in the 1980s, he fronted the Illinois Jacquet Big Band until his death at 81 in 2004.  He was a vigorous, ebullient, but principled man who had been the first jazz artist-in-residence at Harvard in 1983 and who played C-Jam Blues with President Bill Clinton at the 1993 Inaugural Ball.

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