martinc
08-26-2004, 05:50 AM
Jazz-blues legend Noble `Thin Man' Watts dies
BY JIM ABBOTT
The Orlando Sentinel
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/9496349.htm?1c
(KRT) - His nickname fit, but anyone who knew saxophonist Noble "Thin
Man" Watts will tell you that his given name is more appropriate.
Watts, an influential rhythm & blues and jazz saxophonist who died
Tuesday in DeLand, Fla., at age 78, always carried himself with a regal
bearing.
"I'd compare him with Duke Ellington," said Marvin Rooks, a host of
"Smokestack Lightnin'," a long-running weekly blues show on WUCF FM.
"You looked at him and said, `This guy is really cool.' Just a real
gentleman and a consummate musician."
Watts had been in a nursing home in recent months, coping with emphysema
and pneumonia. In February, he wasn't well enough to attend the memorial
service for Bob Greenlee, the musician and producer who performed with
Watts in the Midnight Creepers blues band and revitalized the sax man's
career in the late 1980s by releasing albums on independent King Snake
Records in Sanford, Fla.
"Every year on his birthday we would go over to DeLand and fry him a
turkey," said Greenlee's widow Sonja. "A lot of musicians attended and I
remember some really fun jams at his house."
Sonja Greenlee also recalls that Watts was preoccupied with the notion
of death.
"When we met him almost 20 years ago, he thought he was on his way out,"
she said. "It was a real blow to him when Bob died before he did. Bob
was his young friend and they had a very nice relationship."
Born in DeLand, Watts raked leaves as a boy at Stetson University to pay
for violin lessons. Later, he played trumpet and saxophone, instruments
that his mother gladly bought him to keep him from indulging his
curiosity about boxing.
His musical ability led to a college career at Florida A&M University,
where he played in the original edition of the school's renowned
marching band with a pair of future jazz legends: saxophonist Cannonball
Adderley and his brother, cornetist Nat Adderley.
The experience transformed Watts from someone with raw talent into a
trained musician. His career as a trumpeter ended because he blew high
notes with such force that he strained the muscles in his face.
"Going in, he didn't have as much formal training as the rest of us,"
Nat Adderley told The Orlando Sentinel in 1987. "He got by on talent. He
expanded his musical knowledge by learning to read music, by learning
chord progressions and harmony and composition. He's a well-trained
musician."
In the 1950s, Watts established his professional reputation in New York,
where he played with the house band at Sugar Ray Robinson's club in
Harlem, with Lionel Hampton's orchestra and on rock `n' roll package
tours with Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis and others.
His booming tenor sound influenced a range of saxophonists, including
King Curtis and Bruce Springsteen sideman Clarence Clemons.
Watts released a series of singles on Baton Records, scoring his biggest
hit with the instrumental "Hard Times (the Slop)" in 1957. Another
single, "Jookin'," made enough of an impression on a young Bob Greenlee
that he was astonished years later to see Watts wasting his time playing
lounge music in Central Florida.
"He's one of the greatest friends I ever had," Watts said earlier this
year. "I was in bad shape and he revived my career. I give him credit
for keeping blues alive here, because it would have been dead if it
hadn't been for him."
Since his return to the blues, Watts had been recognized as a musical
icon. He performed less frequently in recent years, though he did
headline a DeLand concert three years ago to celebrate his 75th
birthday. He received an honorary doctorate in 2000 from Stetson
University in DeLand.
In May, the African American Museum of the Arts dedicated an
amphitheater named after Watts in his hometown.
"I like to feel I'm leaving a mark in the form," Watts said in 1987.
"I'd like for it to be that when I die, my music don't die with me. I'd
like for somebody to say, `I got a lot out of what Noble did. He left a
lot for us to go on.'"
Watts is survived by his wife, June, son Robert Hill, of Manassas, Va.;
daughter Natalie W. Brown, of DeLand; sister Constance Brenson, of
Orlando; five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
BY JIM ABBOTT
The Orlando Sentinel
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/9496349.htm?1c
(KRT) - His nickname fit, but anyone who knew saxophonist Noble "Thin
Man" Watts will tell you that his given name is more appropriate.
Watts, an influential rhythm & blues and jazz saxophonist who died
Tuesday in DeLand, Fla., at age 78, always carried himself with a regal
bearing.
"I'd compare him with Duke Ellington," said Marvin Rooks, a host of
"Smokestack Lightnin'," a long-running weekly blues show on WUCF FM.
"You looked at him and said, `This guy is really cool.' Just a real
gentleman and a consummate musician."
Watts had been in a nursing home in recent months, coping with emphysema
and pneumonia. In February, he wasn't well enough to attend the memorial
service for Bob Greenlee, the musician and producer who performed with
Watts in the Midnight Creepers blues band and revitalized the sax man's
career in the late 1980s by releasing albums on independent King Snake
Records in Sanford, Fla.
"Every year on his birthday we would go over to DeLand and fry him a
turkey," said Greenlee's widow Sonja. "A lot of musicians attended and I
remember some really fun jams at his house."
Sonja Greenlee also recalls that Watts was preoccupied with the notion
of death.
"When we met him almost 20 years ago, he thought he was on his way out,"
she said. "It was a real blow to him when Bob died before he did. Bob
was his young friend and they had a very nice relationship."
Born in DeLand, Watts raked leaves as a boy at Stetson University to pay
for violin lessons. Later, he played trumpet and saxophone, instruments
that his mother gladly bought him to keep him from indulging his
curiosity about boxing.
His musical ability led to a college career at Florida A&M University,
where he played in the original edition of the school's renowned
marching band with a pair of future jazz legends: saxophonist Cannonball
Adderley and his brother, cornetist Nat Adderley.
The experience transformed Watts from someone with raw talent into a
trained musician. His career as a trumpeter ended because he blew high
notes with such force that he strained the muscles in his face.
"Going in, he didn't have as much formal training as the rest of us,"
Nat Adderley told The Orlando Sentinel in 1987. "He got by on talent. He
expanded his musical knowledge by learning to read music, by learning
chord progressions and harmony and composition. He's a well-trained
musician."
In the 1950s, Watts established his professional reputation in New York,
where he played with the house band at Sugar Ray Robinson's club in
Harlem, with Lionel Hampton's orchestra and on rock `n' roll package
tours with Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis and others.
His booming tenor sound influenced a range of saxophonists, including
King Curtis and Bruce Springsteen sideman Clarence Clemons.
Watts released a series of singles on Baton Records, scoring his biggest
hit with the instrumental "Hard Times (the Slop)" in 1957. Another
single, "Jookin'," made enough of an impression on a young Bob Greenlee
that he was astonished years later to see Watts wasting his time playing
lounge music in Central Florida.
"He's one of the greatest friends I ever had," Watts said earlier this
year. "I was in bad shape and he revived my career. I give him credit
for keeping blues alive here, because it would have been dead if it
hadn't been for him."
Since his return to the blues, Watts had been recognized as a musical
icon. He performed less frequently in recent years, though he did
headline a DeLand concert three years ago to celebrate his 75th
birthday. He received an honorary doctorate in 2000 from Stetson
University in DeLand.
In May, the African American Museum of the Arts dedicated an
amphitheater named after Watts in his hometown.
"I like to feel I'm leaving a mark in the form," Watts said in 1987.
"I'd like for it to be that when I die, my music don't die with me. I'd
like for somebody to say, `I got a lot out of what Noble did. He left a
lot for us to go on.'"
Watts is survived by his wife, June, son Robert Hill, of Manassas, Va.;
daughter Natalie W. Brown, of DeLand; sister Constance Brenson, of
Orlando; five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.