Jacquet, Illinois
Illinois Jacquet
Saxophonist
Jean Baptiste Illinois Jacquet is considered one of the most distinctive, innovative tenor saxophone players of the post-swing era. During the 1940s Jacquet’s frantic, high-register solos made him a star, but his reputation as a squealing sax man has earned him almost as much critical disapproval as public acclaim. Hisfat, round, bluesy tone is referred to as “Texas style,” a sound made famous by Jacquet and his contemporaries Arnett Cobb and Buddy Tate. The Texas style of play would later influence many rhythm and blues saxophonists from the 1950s to the contemporary era.
Jacquet has spent his entire life playing music. His first public appearance, at the age of three, was in a tap-dancing and singing performance with his father’s band. As a teenager, he switched to drums; it was a natural progression, according to Jacquet in a 1985 Jazz Times interview. “When you learn to tap dance,” he pointed out, “you don’t have no music—you’re your own music! That’s why they usually made the best drummers.. .. [The] time is with the dancer, and the band will only swing if you got the time.”
In high school Jacquet took up the alto saxophone and joined Milt Larkins’s band, one of the legendary unrecorded territory bands. In a 1988 Jazz Times article Jacquet reminisced about one summer evening in Kansas City when up-and-coming alto sax star Charlie Parker watched Jacquet play. “Afterwards, “recalled Jacquet,” we went to a club and started jamming. Our styles were so much alike that when he would play, I thought it was me.”
Joined Lionel Hampton
Jazz bandleader and drummer Lionel Hampton hired Jacquet in 1941, on the condition that Jacquet switch to tenor saxophone. While he was with the Hampton Orchestra, Jacquet became aware of the fact that audiences enjoyed his s solos. He commented in the Jazz Times interview, “The Apollo Theater had a hip audience…. I’d remember the explosion of the crowd after certain things I played, and I’d write them down.” Jacquet took this arsenal of notes into the studio for the Lionel Hampton Orchestra’s recording of “Flying Home.” Thanks in part to Jacquet’s solo, the record became Hampton’s first pop chart entry; it reached Number 23 on the 1943 Billboard charts.
In 1943 Jacquet joined the Cab Calloway Orchestra and remained a member for a few years. Later, during the late 1940s, he became a member of Count Basie’s orchestra for a year, playing on notable Basie numbers “Mutton Leg” and “The King.” He also appeared alongside jazz musicians Lester Young, Harry “Sweets” Edison,
For the Record…
Born Jean Baptiste Illinois Jacquet, October 31, 1922, in Broussard, LA.
Began tap dancing for his father’s band, c. 1925; played drums and alto saxophone before switching to tenor sax, c. 1941; played in Milt Larkins’s and Floyd Ray’s territory bands, c. 1938; member of Lionel Hampton Orchestra, 1941-43, Cab Calloway Orchestra, 1943-44, Jazz at the Philharmonic bands, 1944-61, and Count Basie Orchestra, 1945-46; appeared in short film Jammin’ the Blues; led bands and made recordings, 1950s-80s; visiting professor, Harvard University, 1983-84; formed Illinois Jacquet and His Big Band, 1985; “Flying Home” inducted into the NARAS Hall of Fame, 1996.
Addresses: Record company —Mosaic Records, 35 Melrose Place, Stamford, CT 06902.
Barney Kessel, and others in the short film Jammin’ theBluesan6 was a featured member of Norman Granz’s legendary Jazz at the Philharmonic (JATP) groups.
One Jazz at the Philharmonic concert in which Jacquet appeared was held in Los Angeles on July 2, 1944, and was notable for several reasons. The performance was the first of Granz’s successful series of jazz concerts and tours that played only to nonsegregated audiences and paid the musicians above union scale. It would also spawn the first commercially released live jazzrecording.
Introduced the Honking Sax
Jacquet’s two-and-a-half-minute solo on “Blues (Part Two)” on the historic Jazz at the Philharmonic recording is considered a highlight of the set. According to What Was the First Rock‘n’Roll Record?, “[Jacquet’s performance] was something new, a mixture of stage antics and musical pyrotechnics that, in only a few manic choruses, blew open the boundaries of jazz and rhythm and blues. On that July day at the Philharmonic, Jacquet introduced the phenomenon of the honking saxophonist, and black music—hell, American music—would never be the same again.” Not only was Jacquet acclaimed for his solo on “Blues (Part Two),” but his playing on the track “How High the Moon” convinced record label owner Moses Asch to release the JATP album.
Jacquet’s frenetic style has had appeal among rhythm and blues fans. Gary Giddens approvingly stated in his book Rhythm-a-ning, “He didn’t exactly invent the honking tenor, but at the age of nineteen, in the few minutes it took Lionel Hampton’s orchestra to record ‘Flying Home, ’ he put it on the map. Jazz was now finally as erotic and vulgar as the [women’s magazine] Ladies ‘Home Journal ’ had always warned, and the crowds that came tohear Jacquet with Hampton, Jazz atthe Philharmonic (‘Blues’), and Basie (‘Mutton Leg’) expected nothing less than a shot to the glands.”
The flamboyant aspect of Jacquet’s playing also has its detractors. Basie biographer Raymond Horrick’s opinion of Jacquet differs; he remarked in Count Basie and His Orchestra, Its Music and Its Musician, “[Jacquet’s] high-note screams were in the worst possible taste, but sufficiently exciting to the less-discerning, sensation seeking public to earn him nation-wide recognition… [For] his period with Basie he sobered down somewhat and recorded a number of less-extrovert solos with the band… After leaving Basie, the exhibitionism returned to his playing and with it commercial success.” Norman Granz perhaps best summed up Jacquet’s style in Jazz: The Transition Years: “Even if it’s honking, it’s the best honking. And there’s no baloney about it.”
Formed a Big Band
Jacquet’s reputation as a honking and screaming sax player has followed him throughout his career. However, ina 1953 Down Beat article he said, “I’d hit thosehigh notes mostly because people wanted it. But to be frank with you, I never liked that stuff.” Leading his own bands during the 1950s and 1960s, he became an exceptional ballad interpreter and also took up playing the bassoon. Jacquet’s musical developments did not go entirely unnoticed. Reviewing a live performance in 1968, Down Beat writer Gene Gray remarked, “Whatever one may say about Jacquet during his halcyon days, today he is a complete musician. Whether it be a gentle ballad or an old flagwaver, Jacquet impresses with sound, swing, and soul.”
One of the highlights of Jacquet’s 1969 album The Blues: That’s Me is his rendition of “Round Midnight,” played on bassoon. The album, featuring guitarist Tiny Grimes and pianist Wynton Kelly, was one of several he recorded for Prestige during the 1960s. On The Soul Explosion, also released in 1969, Jacquet leads a ten-piece band with his brother Russell on trumpet and former Hampton sidekick Milt Buckner playing organ.
Jacquet spent the seventies and early eighties in Europe, keeping a low profile in the United States. In 1983 and 1984, while he was a visiting professor at Harvard University, he was inspired to form a big band. He told interviewer Chip Deffaa in Jazz Times in 1985, “I made up my mind that if I could make students at Harvard sound that good, it was time for me to come back to New York and pick the best musicians I could find and form my own big band. I thought: Duke [Ellington’s] gone, Count [Basie’s] gone, Jimmie Lunceford’s gone, Cab [Calloway] no longer had a band—it was just like a call I had, to form this band.” Jacquet’s big band, which broke attendance records at the Village Vanguard, is documented on the album Jacquet’s Got It! and in the documentary film Texas Tenor: The Illinois Jacquet Story.
Jacquet continued performing on jazz recordings into the 1990s. A guest spot on the Modern Jazz Quartet’s 1994 album A Celebration proved that he is still in fine form. As he explained in the closing statement of a 1988 Jazz Times interview, “With this kind of music you don’t get old, because it takes 50 years to learn how to play it. I don’t expect to retire.”
Selected discography
Jazz at the Philharmonic, Stinson, 1944, reissued, Verve.
Bottoms Up, Prestige, 1968, reissued, Fantasy/OJC, 1990.
The Soul Explosion, Prestige, 1969, reissued, Fantasy/OJC, 1991.
The Blues, That’s Me!, Prestige, 1969, reissued, Fantasy/OJC, 1991.
The Comeback, Black Lion, 1971, reissued, DA Music, 1991.
The Black Velvet Band, Bluebird, 1988.
(As Illinois Jacquet and His Big Band) Jacquet’s Got It!, Atlantic Jazz, 1988.
Flies Again (recorded 1959), reissued, Roulette Jazz, 1991.
Flying Home (recorded 1947-67), reissued, Bluebird, 1992.
Flying Home: The Best of the Verve Years (recorded 1951-58), reissued, Verve, 1994.
Illinois Jacquet All-Stars 1945-47, Blue Moon, 1994.
(With Modern Jazz Quartet) A Celebration, Atlantic, 1994.
The Complete Illinois Jacquet Sessions 1945-1950, Mosaic, 1996.
How High the Moon, Prestige.
Sources
Books
Britt, Stan, Long Tall Dexter, A Critical Musical Biography of Dexter Gordon, Quartet Books, 1989.
Cook, Richard, and Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, LP, and Cassette, Penguin Books, 1994.
Dance, Stanley, Jazz Era: The Forties, Macgibbon&Kee, 1961.
Dawson, Jim, and Steve Propes, WhatWas the FirstRock’n’Roll Record?, Faber and Faber, 1992.
Giddins, Gary, Rhythm-a-ning: Jazz Tradition and Innovation in the Eighties, Oxford University Press, 1985.
Gitler, Ira, Swing to Bop: An Oral History of the Transition in Jazz in the 1940s, Oxford University Press, 1985.
Hampton, Lionel, with James Haskins, Hamp: An Autobiography, Amistad, 1989.
Horricks, Raymond, and Alun Morgan, Count Basie and His Orchestra, Its Music and Its Musicians, Negro Universities Press, 1971.
Wilson, John S., Jazz: The Transition Years 1940-1960, Meredith Publishing Company, 1966.
Periodicals
Down Beat, February 11, 1953; January 9, 1969.
Jazz Times, January 1985; September 1988; September 1989.
Additional information for this profile was taken from the films Jammin’ the Blues, 1944, and Texas Tenor: The Illinois Jacquet Story, Rhapsody Films, 1991.
—Jim Powers
Jacquet, Illinois
Illinois Jacquet
1922(?)-2004
Jazz saxophonist
When 19-year-old Illinois Jacquet stepped to a Decca Records microphone in May of 1942 to take his solo on the Lionel Hampton Band's "Flying Home," he was a young saxophonist with tremendous ability but no clear identity. It was the first or second time he had made a recording, and he had recently switched from alto to tenor sax at Hampton's instruction. "I didn't know what I was going to play or what I was going to sound like, or who I was going to imitate," he told Texas Monthly. One of Hampton's sidemen told him to try to find his own style. And then Jacquet delivered one of the two or three most influential solos in all of jazz history, an 80-second masterpiece that began with a quotation of an obscure operatic melody, suddenly gathered energy, and climaxed in a screeching, honking, thrilling repetition of a single note.
Nearly every tenor player who followed made it a priority to learn that solo, note for note. But "Flying Home" marked neither the beginning nor the end of Jacquet's seven-decade career. He was one of jazz's great survivors, thought of as an outrageous musician when he was young but hailed as a classic figure in old age. He was as effective with romantic jazz ballads as he was with the explosive performances with which he made his reputation.
Changed Name to
Illinois
Of French-Creole ancestry on his father's side, Jean-Baptiste Jacquet (pronounced JaKETT) was born in Broussard, Louisiana, on October 31, 1922 (one researcher has argued for a 1919 date). He moved with his family to Houston when he was young and, finding that his French name caused difficulties for Texans, began to use the name Illinois instead. Jacquet's mother was a Native American of the Sioux tribe, and his two versions of how he came by the new name were both connected to her: he said variously that the name was derived from a Siouxan word "Illiniwek," meaning "superior men," and that he was named for a friend of his mother's who came from Chicago to help out when was born.
The family was a musical one; Jacquet's father and three older brothers were all musical professionals, and he made his debut at age three, singing on the radio in Galveston, Texas, to promote a stage show mounted by his brothers. He was a tap dancer at first, but he soon learned to play drums and the soprano and alto saxophones (he eventually mastered the bassoon, an unusual jazz instrument, as well). Jacquet was something of a prodigy, joining the Milton Larkin Orchestra at 15 and finding that he could keep up with the best players he encountered. "Every band that came through heard about this young guy and would want to jam with me," he told Texas Monthly. "It was inspiring because they weren't doing too much that I wasn't doing." But he became depressed by the realities of Southern segregation and set out for Los Angeles in 1939.
The talented teenager quickly made friends in the L.A. jazz community, and a young singer named Nat Cole steered him toward a big band being formed by the popular vibraphonist Lionel Hampton. Hampton hired Jacquet late in 1941 but insisted that he switch to tenor sax. The move proved a smart one on Hampton's part, for the more guttural sound of the tenor instrument fit Jacquet's style. The bandleader noticed that crowds responded strongly to Jacquet's solos when the new Lionel Hampton Band appeared live.
So Hampton took Jacquet with him into the studio in May of 1942 for the famed session that produced "Flying Home." Jacquet's solo was brilliantly structured, hovering and twisting around bent notes for much of its length, building up energy that was released in a torrent with the sequence of repeated notes at the end. The recording became a hit, covered even by country musicians. After Jacquet, exhausted by playing the solo night after night, quit Hampton's band in 1943, Hampton demanded that his replacements learn to reproduce it exactly, and Jacquet's solo eventually became part of every good saxophonist's advanced education.
Appeared at Jazz at the
Philharmonic Concerts
Jacquet quickly signed on with bandleader Cab Calloway and appeared in several films, including Stormy Weather and a musical short subject called Jammin' the Blues. As promoter Norman Granz put together his Jazz at the Philharmonic concert in 1944 to raise money for Mexican men arrested after the Los Angeles "Zoot Suit riots," Jacquet was a natural choice. The opening concert at the city's Philharmonic Hall produced a live Jacquet recording, "Blues (Part 2)," on which the saxophonist bit his reed while playing to drive the instrument to the very top of its range. Jazz purists were cool to Jacquet's flamboyant style, with its screeches and honks, but what they missed was that Jacquet had forged a style that drew strongly on the blues music of his native Texas. Jacquet's playing influenced rhythm-and-blues and later rock saxophonists, and some writers have even claimed "Blues (Part 2)" as the first rock and roll recording.
After the end of World War II, Jacquet moved to New York and took the place of saxophonist Lester Young in the Count Basie Orchestra, with which he had already often appeared. He formed a sextet of his own in 1946 and continued to tour with various Jazz at the Philharmonic groups, recording for the small Aladdin and Apollo labels and later, more prolifically, for Granz's Clef label. As the large swing bands declined, Jacquet revealed other facets of his style in addition to the explosive aspect that had made him famous; he cultivated a smooth ballad style and sometimes took solos on the mellow-sounding and extraordinarily difficult-to-play bassoon.
The composer of several jazz standards, including "Blue Velvet," "Robbins Nest," and "Port of Rico," Jacquet occasionally reunited with bands led by Hampton and Basie. Recording more sporadically after a disagreement with Granz in 1958, and perhaps feeling trapped by the stylistic mold the concert-going public expected him to fit, Jacquet spent much of the 1960s and 1970s touring in Europe. A stint as artist-in-residence at Harvard University in 1983 (he was the first jazz musician to serve in that position) brought Jacquet back to the United States and stimulated a new burst of creativity in his career.
At a Glance …
Born Jean-Baptiste Jacquet on October 31, 1922 (one researcher claims 1919) in Broussard, LA; took name Illinois; died on July 23, 2004, in New York.
Career: Musician, 1930s-2004; joined Milton Larkin Orchestra at age 15; joined Lionel Hampton Orchestra, 1941; played in Count Basie's band, 1945-46; formed own sextet and recorded for various small labels, late 1940s and 1950s; Harvard University, artist-in-residence, 1983; formed Illinois Jacquet Big Band, 1985.
Selected awards: Award for Artistic Excellence, Jazz at Lincoln Center, 2000; Julliard School of Music, honorary doctorate, 2003.
Re-formed Swing Band
"I made up my mind that if I could make students at Harvard sound that good, it was time for me to come back to New York and pick the best musicians I could find and form my own big band," Jacquet told Jazz Times. Full-sized swing bands were rare by the mid-1980s, but the Illinois Jacquet Big Band shattered attendance records at the prestigious Village Vanguard club. Jacquet moved into a house in Queens with companion Carol Scherick and took his place among New York jazz royalty. The album Jacquet's Got It! documented this phase of the musician's career and was nominated for a Grammy award. The documentary film Texas Tenor: The Illinois Jacquet Story also lent new prominence to the saxophonist's work.
The nation as a whole was reminded of Jacquet's talents in 1993 when he shared the stage at the White House with President and fellow saxophonist Bill Clinton. Jacquet kept up a full concert schedule into his old age, receiving the Jazz at Lincoln Center Award for Artistic Excellence in 2000 and honorary doctorate from the Julliard School of Music in May of 2004. He played his last concert with his big band at New York's Lincoln Center on July 16, 2004, one week before his death from a heart attack at his home. A funeral at the city's Riverside Church was attended by dozens of jazz musicians who admired Illinois Jacquet and had been creatively shaped by his meaty, immensely influential music.
Selected discography
(With Lionel Hampton) "Flying Home," 1941.
Illinois Jacquet Jam Session, Atlantic, 1951.
Port of Rico, Clef, 1956.
The Blues: That's Me, Prestige/OJC, 1969.
Jacquet's Got It, Atlantic Jazz, 1988.
Flying Home (recorded 1947-67), Bluebird, 1991.
Flying Home: The Best of the Verve Years (1951-58), Verve, 1994.
Jazz at the Philharmonic, Verve, 1994.
Illinois Jacquet All-Stars 1945-47, Blue Moon, 1994.
The Complete Illinois Jacquet Sessions 1945-1950, Mosaic, 1996.
Sources
Books
Contemporary Musicians, vol. 17, Gale Research, 1996.
Periodicals
Boston Globe, July 23, 2004, p. 16.
Daily News (New York), July 26, 2004, p. 35.
Down Beat, October 2004, p. 24.
Houston Chronicle, July 30, 2004, p. A2.
Jazz Times, January 1985.
Jet, August 9, 2004, p. 61.
New York Times, July 23, 2004, p. A4.
Newsday (New York), July 24, 2004, p. A18; July 30, 2004, p. A17.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 25, 2004, p. B5.
Texas Monthly, November 2002, p. 142.
Times (London, England), July 26, 2004, p. Features-25.
Washington Post, July 24, 2004, p. B5.
—James M. Manheim
Jacquet, Illinois
Illinois Jacquet
Jazz saxophonist
When 19-year-old Illinois Jacquet stepped to a Decca Records microphone in May of 1942 to take his solo on the Lionel Hampton Band's "Flying Home," he was a young saxophonist with tremendous ability but no clear identity. It was the first or second time he had made a recording, and he had recently switched from alto to tenor sax at Hampton's instruction. "I didn't know what I was going to play or what I was going to sound like, or who I was going to imitate," he told Texas Monthly. One of Hampton's sidemen told him to try to find his own style. And then Jacquet delivered one of the two or three most influential solos in all of jazz history, an 80-second masterpiece that began with a quotation of an obscure operatic melody, suddenly gathered energy, and climaxed in a screeching, honking, thrilling repetition of a single note.
Nearly every tenor player who followed made it a priority to learn that solo, note for note. But "Flying Home" marked neither the beginning nor the end of Jacquet's seven-decade career. He was one of jazz's great survivors, thought of as an outrageous musician when he was young but hailed as a classic figure in old age. He was as effective with romantic jazz ballads as he was with the explosive performances with which he made his reputation.
Changed Name to Illinois
Of French-Creole ancestry on his father's side, Jean-Baptiste Jacquet (pronounced Ja-KETT) was born in Broussard, Louisiana, on October 31, 1922 (one researcher has argued for a 1919 date). He moved with his family to Houston when he was young and, finding that his French name caused difficulties for Texans, began to use the name Illinois instead. Jacquet's mother was a Native American of the Sioux tribe, and his two versions of how he came by the new name were both connected to her: he said variously that the name was derived from a Siouxan word "Illiniwek," meaning "superior men," and that he was named for a friend of his mother's who came from Chicago to help out when was born.
The family was a musical one; Jacquet's father and three older brothers were all musical professionals, and he made his debut at age three, singing on the radio in Galveston, Texas, to promote a stage show mounted by his brothers. He was a tap dancer at first, but he soon learned to play drums and the soprano and alto saxophones (he eventually mastered the bassoon, an unusual jazz instrument, as well). Jacquet was something of a prodigy, joining the Milton Larkin Orchestra at 15 and finding that he could keep up with the best players he encountered. "Every band that came through heard about this young guy and would want to jam with me," he told Texas Monthly. "It was inspiring because they weren't doing too much that I wasn't doing." But he became depressed by the realities of Southern segregation and set out for Los Angeles in 1939.
The talented teenager quickly made friends in the L.A. jazz community, and a young singer named Nat Cole steered him toward a big band being formed by the popular vibraphonist Lionel Hampton. Hampton hired Jacquet late in 1941 but insisted that he switch to tenor sax. The move proved a smart one on Hampton's part, for the more guttural sound of the tenor instrument fit Jacquet's style. The bandleader noticed that crowds responded strongly to Jacquet's solos when the new Lionel Hampton Band appeared live.
So Hampton took Jacquet with him into the studio in May of 1942 for the famed session that produced "Flying Home." Jacquet's solo was brilliantly structured, hovering and twisting around bent notes for much of its length, building up energy that was released in a torrent with the sequence of repeated notes at the end. The recording became a hit, covered even by country musicians. After Jacquet, exhausted by playing the solo night after night, quit Hampton's band in 1943, Hampton demanded that his replacements learn to reproduce it exactly, and Jacquet's solo eventually became part of every good saxophonist's advanced education.
Appeared at Jazz at the Philharmonic Concerts
Jacquet quickly signed on with bandleader Cab Calloway and appeared in several films, including StormyWeather and a musical short subject called Jammin' the Blues. As promoter Norman Granz put together his Jazz at the Philharmonic concert in 1944 to raise money for Mexican men arrested after the Los Angeles "Zoot Suit riots," Jacquet was a natural choice. The opening concert at the city's Philharmonic Hall produced a live Jacquet recording, "Blues (Part 2)," on which the saxophonist bit his reed while trying to drive the instrument to the very top of its range. Jazz purists were cool to Jacquet's flamboyant style, with its screeches and honks, but what they missed was that Jacquet had forged a style that drew strongly on the blues music of his native Texas. Jacquet's playing influenced rhythm and blues and later rock saxophonists (some writers have even claimed "Blues (Part 2)" as the first rock and roll recording).
After the end of World War II, Jacquet moved to New York and took the place of saxophonist Lester Young in the Count Basie Orchestra, with which he had already often appeared. He formed a sextet of his own in 1946 and continued to tour with various Jazz at the Philharmonic groups, recording for the small Aladdin and Apollo labels and later, more prolifically, for Granz's Clef label. As the large swing bands declined, Jacquet revealed other facets of his style in addition to the explosive aspect that had made him famous; he cultivated a smooth ballad style and sometimes took solos on the mellow-sounding and extraordinarily difficult-to-play bassoon.
The composer of several jazz standards, including "Blue Velvet," "Robbins Nest," and "Port of Rico," Jacquet occasionally reunited with bands led by Hampton and Basie. Recording more sporadically after a disagreement with Granz in 1958, and perhaps feeling trapped by the stylistic mold the concert-going public expected him to fit, Jacquet spent much of the 1960s and 1970s touring in Europe. A stint as artist-in-residence at Harvard University in 1983 (he was the first jazz musician to serve in that position) brought Jacquet back to the United States and stimulated a new burst of creativity in his career.
Re-formed Swing Band
"I made up my mind that if I could make students at Harvard sound that good, it was time for me to come back to New York and pick the best musicians I could find and form my own big band," Jacquet told Jazz Times. Full-sized swing bands were rare by the mid-1980s, but the Illinois Jacquet Big Band shattered attendance records at the prestigious Village Vanguard club. Jacquet moved into a house in Queens with companion Carol Scherick and took his place among New York jazz royalty. The album Jacquet's Got It! documented this phase of the musician's career and was nominated for a Grammy award. The documentary film Texas Tenor: The Illinois Jacquet Story also lent new prominence to the saxophonist's work.
The nation as a whole was reminded of Jacquet's talents in 1993 when he shared the stage at the White House with President and fellow saxophonist Bill Clinton. Jacquet kept up a full concert schedule into his old age, receiving the Jazz at Lincoln Center Award for Artistic Excellence in 2000 and honorary doctorate from the Julliard School of Music in May of 2004. He played his last concert with his big band at New York's Lincoln Center on July 16, 2004, one week before his death from a heart attack at his home. A funeral at the city's Riverside Church was attended by dozens of jazz musicians who admired Illinois Jacquet and had been creatively shaped by his meaty, immensely influential music.
For the Record . . .
Born Jean-Baptiste Jacquet on October 31, 1922 (one researcher claims 1919) in Broussard, LA; took name Illinois; died on July 23, 2004, in New York.
Musician, 1930s-2004; joined Milton Larkin Orchestra at age 15; joined Lionel Hampton Orchestra, 1941; played in Count Basie's band, 1945-46; formed own sextet and recorded for various small labels, late 1940s and 1950s; Harvard University, artist-in-residence, 1983; formed Illinois Jacquet Big Band, 1985.
Awards: Award for Artistic Excellence, Jazz at Lincoln Center, 2000; Julliard School of Music, honorary doctorate, 2003.
Selected discography
(With Lionel Hampton) "Flying Home," 1941.
Illinois Jacquet Jam Session, Atlantic, 1951.
Port of Rico, Clef, 1956.
The Blues: That's Me, Prestige/OJC, 1969.
Jacquet's Got It, Atlantic Jazz, 1988.
Flying Home (recorded 1947-67), Bluebird, 1991.
Flying Home: The Best of the Verve Years (1951-58), Verve, 1994.
Jazz at the Philharmonic, Verve, 1994.
Illinois Jacquet All-Stars 1945-47, Blue Moon, 1994.
The Complete Illinois Jacquet Sessions 1945-1950, Mosaic, 1996.
Sources
Boston Globe, July 23, 2004, p. 16.
Daily News (New York, NY), July 26, 2004, p. 35.
Down Beat, October 2004, p. 24.
Houston Chronicle, July 30, 2004, p. A2.
Jazz Times, January 1985.
Jet, August 9, 2004, p. 61.
New York Times, July 23, 2004, p. A4.
Newsday (New York, NY), July 24, 2004, p. A18; July 30, 2004, p. A17.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 25, 2004, p. B5.
Texas Monthly, November 2002, p. 142.
Times (London, England), July 26, 2004, p. Features-25.
Washington Post, July 24, 2004, p. B5.
—James M. Manheim