Coming from a Louisiana Creole background, Jean-Baptiste Illinois Jacquet grew up playing in his father's band. Destiny took him by the hand at a young age when his friend, a young Nat King Cole, introduced him to a musician called Lionel Hampton who was looking to fill spaces in a big band. Jacquet took up the mantle and soon became a star tenor saxophonist, mainly due to his signature "honking" solo he played on the track "Flying Home." Credited as the first R&B saxophone solo and a precursor to rock and roll, Jacquet was expected to bring the house down every night and, at just 19 years old, that is exactly what he did.
Such an explosive career start led to collaborations with Cab Calloway, Charles Mingus and Count Basie, where he showed a softer side to counterbalance the raucousness of his early playing. He was a pioneer of the tenor saxophone but also later became a bassoon player, able to stomp like an elephant one minute and flutter like a butterfly the next. Here, at this 1973 performance in Paris, he is joined by Wild Bill Davis on piano and Al Bartee on drums, both decorated jazzmen in their own right. On a diverse repertoire that includes the famous "April In Paris," Jacquet's own "Blues Of Louisiana," he shows seasoned mastery. The set finishes with "Flying Home," the same banger that kickstarted his jazz adventure in the first place.
