Gene Ammons

Information about Gene Ammons

Eugene "Jug" Ammons (April 14, 1925 - August 6, 1974) was an American jazz tenor saxophone player, and the son of boogie-woogie pianist Albert Ammons.

Ammons began to gain recognition when he went on the road with trumpeter King Kolax band in 1943, at the age of 18. He became a member of the Billy Eckstine and Woody Herman bands in 1944 and 1949 respectively, and then in 1950 formed a duet with Sonny Stitt. His later career was interrupted by two prison sentences for narcotics possession, the first from 1958 to 1960, the second from 1962 to 1969.

Ammons and Von Freeman were the founders of the Chicago School of tenor saxophone. His style of playing showed influences from Lester Young as well as Ben Webster. These artists had helped develop the sound of the tenor saxophone to higher levels of expressiveness. Ammons, together with Dexter Gordon and Sonny Stitt, helped integrated their developments with the emerging "vernacular" of the bebop movement, and the chromaticism and rhythmic variety of Charlie Parker is evident in his playing.

While adept at the technical aspects of bebop, in particular its love of harmonic substitions, Ammons more than Young, Webster or Parker, stayed in touch with the commercial blues and R&B of his day. The "soul Jazz" movement of the mid-1950s, often using the combination of tenor saxophone and Hammond B3 electric organ, counts him as a founder. Often using a thinner, drier tone than Stitt or Gordon, Ammons could at will exploit a vast range of textures on the instrument, vocalizing it in ways that look forward to later artists like Stanley Turrentine, Houston Person, and remarkably Archie Shepp. Ammons showed little interest however in the modal jazz of John Coltrane, Joe Henderson or Wayne Shorter that was emerging at the same time.

Some fine ballad performances in his oeuvre are testament to an exceptional sense of intonation and melodic symmetry, powerful lyrical expressiveness, and mastery both of the blues and the bebop vernacular which can now be described as, in its own way, "classical."

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Jazz is an original American musical art form that originated around the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in and around New Orleans.

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Jazz has been called "America's only original art form.
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The saxophone (colloquially referred to as sax) is a conical-bored instrument of the woodwind family.

It is usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece like the clarinet.
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Boogie-woogie is a style of piano-based blues that became very popular in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and was extended from piano, to three pianos at once, guitar, big band, and country and western music, and even gospel.
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For other meanings see Pianist (disambiguation).


A pianist is a person who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with a smaller ensemble, or accompany one or more singers or solo instrumentalists.
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Albert Ammons (23 September 1907-2 December1949) was an American jazz, blues and boogie woogie pianist born in Chicago, Illinois, perhaps most known for his hit "Swanee River Boogie". Ammons played the melody of "Old Folks at Home" over a boogie woogie bass.
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Billy Eckstine (8 July,1914–8 March, 1993), born William Clerance Eckstein in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was a ballad singer of the Swing Era.
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Woodrow Charles Herman (May 16 1913 – October 29 1987), better known as Woody Herman, was an American jazz clarinetist, alto and soprano saxophonist, singer, and big band leader.
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Edward "Sonny" Stitt (February 2 1924 – July 22 1982) was an American jazz saxophonist. He was a quintessential saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom and was also one of the most prolific saxophonists of his generation, recording over 100 records in his lifetime.
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*:1969 (number)
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Earl Lavon Freeman Sr. (born October 3, 1922 in Chicago, Illinois) is a hard bop tenor saxophonist. He is also the father of Chico Freeman.

He learned saxophone as a child and at DuSable High School his band director was Walter Dyett.
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Lester Willis Young (August 27, 1909 – March 15, 1959), nicknamed Prez, was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and clarinetist.

He is remembered as one of the finest, most influential players on his instrument, playing with a cool tone and sophisticated
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Benjamin Francis Webster (March 27 1909–September 20 1973) was an influential American jazz tenor saxophonist.

Webster, born in Kansas City, Missouri, was considered one of the three most important "swing tenors" along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young.
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Dexter Gordon (February 27, 1923–April 25, 1990) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, and an Academy Award-nominated actor. He is considered one of the first bebop tenor players.
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Edward "Sonny" Stitt (February 2 1924 – July 22 1982) was an American jazz saxophonist. He was a quintessential saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom and was also one of the most prolific saxophonists of his generation, recording over 100 records in his lifetime.
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Stanley William Turrentine, also known as "Mr. T" or "The Sugar Man", (April 5, 1934 – September 12, 2000) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.

Turrentine was born in Pittsburgh's Hill District into a musical family: his father was a saxophonist, his mother played
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Houston Person (born November 10th, 1934) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist and record producer. Although he has performed in the hard bop and swing genres, he is most experienced in and best known for his work in soul jazz.
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Archie Shepp is an American jazz saxophonist.

Shepp was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on May 24, 1937, but raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he studied piano, clarinet and alto saxophone before focusing on tenor saxophone (he occasionally plays soprano
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John William Coltrane (September 23 1926 – July 17 1967), nicknamed Trane, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Although recordings of his work from as early as 1946 exist, Coltrane's recording career did not begin in earnest until 1955.
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