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Three Seasoned Saxophone Pros

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Last week, Danilo Morandi in Switzerland sent along YouTube clips of two senior tenor saxophonists who played their tails off locally. I added a third.

One of these saxophonists is Larry McKenna, a Philadelphian who spent six months in Woody Herman's road band starting in 1959 before devoting much of his career to playing locally. I last included Larry in a post in 2018 here.

The other saxophonist Danilo sent is Aubra Graves. An astonishing player. Graves doesn't turn up in Tom Lord's Jazz Discography. Instead, he settled in Waco, Texas, in 1947 and made his livelihood playing at local jazz clubs and working at music stores as a bookkeeper, in sales and instrument repair. And yet he was a monster player.

And I added Irv WIlliams, who played in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area and recorded about a dozen albums before passing in 2019.

Here are the clips, starting with Larry McKenna, who was born in 1937:

Here's The Nearness of You in 2018...



Here's Polka Dots and Moonbeams in 2019...



And here's After You've Gone in 2017...



Here are three clips of Aubra Graves, who died last year (1924-2020):

Here's But Beautiful in 2015...



Here's Georgia on My Mind in 2005...



And here's Polka Dots and Moonbeams in 2016, with Graves playing his 1932 Conn tenor saxophone...



And here are three clips by Irv Williams, who died in 2019 (1919-2019):



Here's Horace Silver's Peace and Wee Small Hours of the Morning in 2007...



And here's Satin Doll in 2017...

Continue Reading...

This story appears courtesy of JazzWax by Marc Myers.
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