Part 2 - Don Byas [1913-1972] - Some Perspectives
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“A new band had opened at the Savoy that no one in these parts had heard of before. Eddie Mallory was making his New York debut, trumpet in hand, heading his band. On the side, Mallory was the husband of the great actress and singer Ethel Waters. The band had been touring the country with Ethel Waters' own show, and I tell you this was one wailing ensemble.
They totally captivated me that opening night, particularly the two soloists I knew had to become world jazz stars. The two youngsters who generated all the excitement were the trombonist Tyree Glenn and the tenor saxophonist Don Byas. Until skinny little Don arrived from California with that big, fat tone, Coleman Hawkins and Chu Berry were the "head" tenor men in the east. Don Byas played just as well and, because he was new in town, with a fresher sound. Coleman once confided, "I love to play with Don, but I can't have him in my band. He makes me blow too hard!"”
Timme Rosenkrantz, Harlem Jazz Adventures, A European Baron’s Memoirs, 1934-1969. [2012]
“Byas traveled to Europe in autumn 1946 with Redman's band and soon took up permanent residence there - first in France, and later in the Netherlands and Denmark. Thereafter he worked most frequently as a soloist, performing at a number of festivals; he also played with Duke Ellington (1950), toured with Jazz at the Philharmonic, and recorded with Ben Webster (1968). During the last years of his life he undertook jazz and dance-band engagements intermittently throughout Europe. He returned to the USA only once, in 1970, when he appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival.
Byas began his playing career as one of the many imitators of Coleman Hawkins, but by the mid- 1940s he had become an important transitional figure who combined the tone quality and vibrato of Hawkins with some of the rhythmic and melodic ideas of Charlie Parker and other bop musicians. In a remarkable duet performance with Slam Stewart of I Got Rhythm, for example, he plays long strings of eighth-notes in the bop style, and even produces some of the melodic formulas used regularly by Parker.”
Thomas Owens, The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, Barry Kernfeld, Ed. [1988]
The second part of this feature on Don Byas is based on Loren Schoenberg’s introductory pages from the booklet notes to the recent issue of a Mosaic boxed set - Classic Don Byas 1944-1946 [MD10-277].
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