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Don Byas

Don Byas was one of the most respected and recorded tenor players of the 1940’s. In that fruitful period he had few peers in the the area of prolific productivity. Byas was a masterful swing player with his own style, an advanced sense of harmony, and a confidence and adventurousness that found him hanging around the beboppers and asking to play. He held his own and did so while insistently remaining himself: he never picked up the rhythmic phrases, the lightning triplets, which are indigenous to bop. Yet Charlie Parker said of him that Byas was playing everything there was to play.

Born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, in 1912, he played alto as a teenager, subbing in territorial bands like Bennie Moten's and Walter Page's Blue Devils. As a student at Langston College, he led his own band, Don Byas and the Collegiate Ramblers. Between 1933, when he switched to tenor, and 1941, he worked with a variety of bands, first in California and then New York—among them: Buck Clayton, Lionel Hampton, Eddie Barefield, Eddie Mallory, Lucky Millinder, Andy Kirk and Redman. In January '41, he became Lester Young's successor in the Count Basie band and quickly established his abilities, cementing his reputation.

Byas' style evolved in the lush, full-bodied tenor tradition of Coleman Hawkins, but his sound was unmistakably his own, immediately recognizable. A master of technique, he accomplished both tender warmth and the most strident sting. His sense of drama coupled with a brilliant use of dynamics and timbre, a deeply-felt romanticism, and an innate sense of swing made his improvisations unique.

When he left for Europe in the fall of 1946 with the Don Redman band, his reputation was at its peak. Admired by the modernists and the traditional swingers, he was celebrated as a tireless, original and influential saxophonist. His solo on Basie's "Harvard Blues" had created a stir in 1941 and he followed it with a remarkable series of recordings for small labels. In his romantic approach to "Laura," he had something of a hit.

He stayed in Europe, where he was quite the star in France, then the Netherlands, becoming the first in a continuously expanding family of expatriate jazzmen. Although Byas was much in demand by the jazz-appreciative Europeans, he was largely forgotten back home. Few of his records were available here and without personal appearances it is difficult, if not impossible, to sustain a following. He returned to the U.S.

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Album Review

Charlie Parker: Be Bop Live

Read "Be Bop Live" reviewed by Mark Corroto


The name of the record label is ezz-thetics, which was also a composition by George Russell and an album of the same name (which featured Eric Dolphy) released by Riverside Records in 1961. Maybe a better moniker for the label is “Lest We Forget." Not that we could ever abandon Charlie Parker, but today when streaming services replace CDs and LPs, which also replaced 78s and live radio broadcasts (the streaming service of its day), Parker has the possibility of ...

Album Review

Charlie Parker Quintets: Be Bop Live

Read "Be Bop Live" reviewed by Stefano Merighi


Benvenuti a uno dei convegni di bellezza più eccitanti che il jazz abbia mai prodotto. Royal Roost, New York City, dicembre 1948-febbraio 1949, due mesi in cui Charlie “Bird" Parker teneva il cartellone nel club della Quarantasettesima, sconvolgendo il pubblico con alcune tra le sue esibizioni più brillanti. Il bop era già linguaggio assimilato ormai, ma l'eccezionalità di quelle serate confermava Parker come punta di diamante di tutta la cultura africana-americana, al di là delle correnti jazzistiche.Questo doppio ...

537
Album Review

Don Byas: Laura

Read "Laura" reviewed by Mike Neely


Don Byas was clearly a rising star when he walked away from fame. He was the first to hold the Lester Young chair in the Count Basie Band, before his 30th birthday. After two years with Basie he moved to New York City, where he played and recorded with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and Coleman Hawkins. In 1946 Byas toured Europe and decided France was the place he wanted to live, and so he did.

362
Album Review

Don Byas: Don Byas: Complete American Small Group Recordings

Read "Don Byas: Complete American Small Group Recordings" reviewed by Mike Neely


Oklahoma born tenor saxophonist Don Byas moved easily between swing and bebop with an earthy, blues sound that brings to mind Coleman Hawkins but with a lightness of touch and rhythmic agility reminiscent of Lester Young. He successfully synthesized these two influences, in many ways updating them into the bebop era. Byas mastered the breathtaking tempos associated with Parker and Gillespie but avoided the angular, sharp phrasing- with the result that his up-tempo approach had a more rounded, swing solo ...

179
Album Review

Don Byas Quartet: Featuring Sir Charles Thompson

Read "Featuring Sir Charles Thompson" reviewed by Dave Nathan


Don Byas, believing he was never going to get the recognition he deserved in this country because of bigotry, left the United States for Europe and never looked back. Virtually all of his good work was done on the Continent. Usually cited as one of the first tenor saxophonist to take up Bop, Byas never let go of his romantic and swinging roots. This reissue of a free wheeling live performance demonstrates how successful Byas was in merging all these ...

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Recording

Classic Don Byas Sessions 1944-1946

Classic Don Byas Sessions 1944-1946

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Don Byas was a shadow. Too often in the 1940s, the tenor saxophonist was thought of by fans and critics as a close clone of tenor saxophone avatar Coleman Hawkins. In truth, Byas was a distinctive player in the same league as Hawkins and other saxophone greats Lester Young and Ben Webster. His thick, biting tone and gift for flawless, weaving improvisation made him a sought-after player for his pronounced sound and ability to take domineering solos. The problem for ...

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TV / Film

Documentary: Don Byas Returns

Documentary: Don Byas Returns

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers


Recording

Don Byas in Paris, 1946-54

Don Byas in Paris, 1946-54

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

The buildings and monuments of Paris were largely untouched during World War II by the Nazi occupation. Paris also endured little in the way of Allied bombing or German sabotage during its liberation. The city was too pretty. As a result, its infrastructure remained intact. For the first few years after the war, the city suffered financial hardship along with the rest of the country as it struggled to regain its footing without much assistance from a tapped-out French government. ...

Jackie McLean
saxophone, alto
Greg Osby
saxophone
Ruud de Vries
saxophone, tenor
Hilary Noble
saxophone, tenor
Enric Peidro
saxophone, tenor
Kai Gluska
guitar

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Classic Don Byas...

Mosaic Records
2024

buy

Be Bop Live

Ezz-thetics
2020

buy

Laura

Gitanes
2009

buy

Stardust

Nonesuch
2006

buy

1951-1952

Nonesuch
2003

buy

Don Byas: Complete...

Definitive Records
2003

buy

Videos

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