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“A respectful pause for those figures condemned to the limbo of the 'transitional'. Don Byas dominates the strip of turf mid-way between Coleman Hawkins and Charlie Parker, combining the old man's vibrato and grouchy tone with Bird's limber solo style and fresh, open diction. Hard these days to recognize just how highly regarded Byas once was, until one actually hears him.”
Richard Cook and Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Ed.
Tenor saxophonist Don Byas [1912-1972] is often overlooked as an influence on the modernist saxophonists of the Bebop and Beyond years that include John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Hank Mobley and a host of others.
Swing era tenor saxophonists Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Chu Berry and even Frankie Trumbauer from Jazz’s inception years in the 1920s are often cited as sources that modernists stylistically derived from, but Don’s name is rarely included in this group.
With the recent issue of a Mosaic boxed set - Classic Don Byas 1944-1946 [MD10-277] - dedicated to some of Don’s earliest recordings, hopefully that overdue recognition will be accorded to Don.
I’ll treat Loren Schoenberg’s always insightful booklet notes to the Mosaic set in a separate piece.
In the meantime, here are a few additional views of Don and his music as found in the Jazz literature.
Let’s start with the brief interview he gave drummer Art Taylor which is collected in Art Taylor Notes and Tones: Musician-to-Musician Interviews [1977].
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