Born on April 14, 1925, Ammons was a second-generation jazz musician from Chicago, who earned consideration for his fiery work in Billy Eckstine’s huge band, and his staged duels with fellow saxophonists.
DAVE DAVIES, HOST:
That is FRESH AIR. Jazz tenor saxophonist Gene Ammons was born 100 years in the past on April 14, 1925. Ammons was a second-generation jazz musician from Chicago who earned early consideration for his fiery work in Billy Eckstine’s huge band and his staged duels with fellow saxophonists. Jazz historian Kevin Whitehead says Gene Ammons was one of many music’s nice and hottest saxophone stylists.
(SOUNDBITE OF GENE AMMONS’ “BEEZY”)
KEVIN WHITEHEAD, BYLINE: Gene Ammons tearing it up on “Beezy” in 1952. The tenor saxophonist had come up in Billy Eckstine’s mid-Forties huge band, whose tough syncopations and superior harmonies recognized them with a brand new model of jazz referred to as bebop. Most boppers performed intricate solo traces, however Gene Ammons favored huge gestures and scooping bluesy phrases – the higher to highlight is huge sound. He bounces off a traditional bebop riff prefer it’s a trampoline on Eckstine’s “Oo Bop Sh’Bam.”
(SOUNDBITE OF BILLY ECKSTINE’S “OO BOP SH’BAM”)
WHITEHEAD: Born in Chicago, Gene Ammons had studied with the celebrated highschool instructor who educated scores of jazz musicians, Walter Dyett. Gene had had a head begin because the son of the nice boogie-woogie pianist Albert Ammons. Father and Son recorded collectively in 1947, close to the beginning of Gene’s profession and the tip of Albert’s. Their contrasting approaches to the blues mark a generational shift to a swifter new type for the atomic age. That is “Hiroshima.”
(SOUNDBITE OF ALBERT AMMONS’ “HIROSHIMA”)
WHITEHEAD: Gene Ammons’ drive and large sound made him a prepared competitor in pleasant battles with different tenor gamers – with Dexter Gordon and Billy Eckstine’s band after which with Sonny Stitt, on and off for many years, beginning round 1950.
(SOUNDBITE OF GENE AMMONS & SONNY STITT ALL STARS’ “BLUES UP AND DOWN (TAKE 3)”)
WHITEHEAD: On his personal within the ’50s, Gene Ammons made loads of up-tempo stompers, however he was additionally a grasp of tender ballads. His huge tone was variable. He may bleat or blat like a rhythm and blues honker or caress a notice at a whisper. His grand gestures, sudden eruptions and Lester Younger-inspired repeated notes have been particularly efficient at sluggish tempos, the place he may actually linger over a phrase.
(SOUNDBITE OF GENE AMMONS’ “OLD FOLKS”)
WHITEHEAD: Gene Ammons on “Previous Of us” from 1952. In that decade, recording engineers began making his sound much more placing by bathing it in reverb. Within the studio, he’d think about that echo chamber impact, giving particular person notes room to ring out.
(SOUNDBITE OF GENE AMMONS’ “CANADIAN SUNSET”)
WHITEHEAD: “Canadian Sundown,” 1962. Gene Ammons recorded so much that 12 months, however six years would go earlier than he’d document once more. Ammons was a heroin person who spent a lot of the Sixties in an Illinois jail. On launch, he bought proper again to work, resuming his bouts with Sonny Stitt and his recording profession. The music had modified in his absence, with new electrical devices and pop influences. Gene Ammons carried on as standard. He was a populist already.
(SOUNDBITE OF GENE AMMONS’ “A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME”)
WHITEHEAD: Gene Ammons died in 1974 of most cancers and pneumonia at age 49 – the up-tempo bruiser who performed a number of the prettiest ballads round. His daring, painterly strokes, dramatic use of area and feisty angle may make him sound larger than life-size at any tempo.
(SOUNDBITE OF GENE AMMONS’ “TILL THERE WAS YOU”)
DAVIES: Kevin Whitehead is the writer of “New Dutch Swing,” “Why Jazz?” and “Play The Manner You Really feel.” On tomorrow’s present, New Yorker employees author Sarah Stillman stories on the stunning quantity of people that died of hunger or dehydration in county jails, typically mentally unwell individuals arrested for minor crimes. She finds lots of the deaths happen in counties the place non-public corporations are offering correctional well being companies. I hope you’ll be able to be a part of us.
To maintain up with what’s on the present and get highlights of our interviews, observe us on Instagram at @nprfreshair. FRESH AIR’s govt producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Briger. Our interviews and critiques are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the present. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I am Dave Davies.
(SOUNDBITE OF GENE AMMONS’ “TILL THERE WAS YOU”)
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