There is surprisingly little filmed footage on Gene Ammons, whose 91st birthday anniversary was April 14. Ammons was one of the most revered tenor saxophonists in modern jazz, a colleague of Charlie Parker and Dexter Gordon in Billy Eckstine’s orchestra of the mid-forties, a player with superb chops and a soulfulness that made him an enduring favorite with audiences back home and worldwide.
The 21-year-old Ammons is on the left in Mr. B’s saxophone section of 1946. Frank Wess is the tenor soloist on “Taps Miller,” and Jug is featured on “Second Balcony Jump.” Ammons was dubbed “Jug” by Eckstine when the hats Mr. B had ordered for the band didn’t fit his head.
Ammons came by his commanding blues mastery naturally as the son of boogie woogie piano legend Albert Ammons. (That’s Albert on the left, Pete Johnson on the right, under the lovely gaze of the 27-year-old Lena Horne in 1944.)
For Prestige Records, Ammons led some of the greatest in-studio jam sessions ever recorded (The Big Sound, The Happy Blues, Blue Gene, Jammin’ in Hi-Fi); tenor with rhythm dates (Boss Tenor, Jug, Up Tight!); boudoir ballad albums later reissued in the series, Gentle Jug; organ combo sessions with Brother Jack McDuff and Etta Jones; and legendary tenor battles with Dexter, Sonny Stitt, and James Moody. Stanley Turrentine, Houston Person, David “Fathead” Newman and others are among his disciples.
Here’s Jug with Hampton Hawes, Bob Cranshaw, and Kenny Clarke at Montreux in 1973 playing Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady.”
“The Real McCoy” is a particular favorite of mine from Jug’s studio jam sessions. Composed by Mal Waldron and named for Chicago radio host Sid McCoy, it features John Coltrane in a rare appearance on alto saxophone, Pepper Adams on baritone, and Paul Quinichette on tenor. Ammons was the subject of a discussion several years ago about the kinds of players whose presence makes everyone else seem secondary. The focused intensity and thematic cohesion of his opening solo lays down a particularly challenging gauntlet for the all-stars who follow, and underscores his stature as “The Boss,” the nickname Ammons earned for his musicianship rather than head size.