I’ve heard white musicians play dixiland and I’ve heard black musicians play jazz.
Backgammon from Illinois
“I saw the Count Basie Band when I was in high school in Houston. They came with saxophonists Herschel Evans and Lester Young. After that I had to blow into a saxophone. It was 1939, my last year of school, a turning point in my life. “
Seven years later, Illinois Jacquet himself joined the band Basie, replacing his idol, Lester Young. His short, deep roar – “horn” is what jazz musicians call it, and the forays into the very high range, the shrill screams, the “squeals” – made Jacquet’s horn sing. The tonal range expanded by two and a half octaves. In the short film “Texas Tenor” you can see how he forms this tone with all his facial muscles.
At the age of three he played in his father’s band
When he realized he was getting more applause for his solo than for the orchestra, he formed his own band. Today there is no doubt that he is one of the giants of the jazz saxophone.
Jean Battiste “Illinois” Jacquet was born on October 31, 1922 near New Orleans, one of six children born to a Creole mother and an indigenous Sioux woman. A few months later the family moved to Houston, Texas. At the age of three, Jean performed as a tap dancer in front of her father’s band. Nat “King” Cole recommended him to band leader Lionel Hampton.
Jacquet owes her worldwide fame to the heated solo of “Flying Home”, recorded in 1942. Every night she had to repeat it live up to three or four times.
“Flying Home”: a masterpiece of improvisation at 19
He improvised 64 bars on the melody, a brilliant 19-year-old achievement. Many young saxophonists have had to learn this solo. The children on the street buzzed it. “Flying Home” is like a foreshadowing of the tenor sax in rock ‘n’ roll.
He felt he still had one foot in a dance orchestra and the other in the modern age. And there was his unfailing sense of building a solo. Lester Young’s relaxed swing combined with rough, hoarse Texas tone.
With “Jazz at the Philharmonic” against racial segregation
Illinois Jacquet’s skill has long been ignored by critics. Frustrated with racism in the south, he moved to the west coast and found work in Hollywood nightclubs. Promoter Norman Granz hired him in 1944 for the first concerts of his “Jazz at the Philharmonic” series – an effective weapon against racial segregation: mixed cast in front of thousands of fans.
We always aim for a spontaneous feeling, as if it were not organized at all.
Backgammon from Illinois
His share was paid only in cash and he always carried a suitcase full of dollar bills.
The only tiring thing was performing somewhere else every night, even forty times in a row!
Backgammon from Illinois
First jazz musician at Harvard University
The post-war economic crisis made the big jazz bands disappear; then he played with a quartet or took the stage with an organ trio. He wrote the infectious “Jivin ‘with Jack the Bellboy” for a radio DJ.
Illinois Jacquet has taken part in over 190 recording sessions, seventy under her own name. In the 1980s he led his own big band. He was the first jazz musician to lecture as a guest at Harvard University and has played for three US presidents. Illinois Jacquet died on July 22, 2004 at the age of 81.
