It’s July 1979 at the North Sea Jazz Festival and five of the world’s greatest tenor saxophone players take the stage. Illinois Jacquet, Arnett Cobb, Dexter Gordon, Buddy Tate and Budd Johnson perform one of the most sensational sax battles in anyone’s memory. To complete the perfection, behind them are Hank Jones on piano, Gene Ramey playing bass and Gus Johnson on drums.
Flyin’ Home was written back in 1939 by Lionel Hampton and Benny Goodman. Within a very few years it became a jazz standard recorded by just about everybody.
After blowing the roof off the place for more than an hour, they gave the crowd their one more once with a mellow encore tune called The Hague’s Blues.
Ten years later, I had the pleasure of interviewing Illinois Jacquet, after living for more than twenty years in Paris, and on the eve of his Grammy Award winning album “Jacquet’s Got It!” … his first album since returning to America. I updated my interview and moved it forward from our Jazz Scene Podcasts page to share with you this week. When I interviewed him on the phone, I engaged an open friendly voice that pulled you in, much the same way he played his horn.
