Almost one hour of fantastic live clips of the late great Illinois Jacquet

Mr P, you've done it again! Thank you for again exposing to the denizens of sotw the magnificent playing and style of this master virtuoso. These bring back bittersweet memories of my years working in the Jacquet band. As you know, I was in the band during one of the band's tours to The Netherlands that you were able to check out, a concert at Hoofddorp.

I have to smile when I see Jacquet on the 'Texas Tenor' vid directing the band during a "sound check." I put sound check in quotes because his sound check turned into daily rehearsals on the road. Three to four hours a day. Every day. Seven days a week. Usually from around two or three in the afternoon til seven or 7:30 in the evening, (at which time we were usually thrown off the stage by the production crew) then you ate dinner and did two long sets. Man, Jacquet was very demanding but he was there working right with you.

I see Eddie Barefield on the first vid. Man, now there's a legend. EB taught Lester Young, he taught Ben Webster, and he taught Jacquet. Jacquet told me that he started his career as a child dancer doing soft shoe on street corners for pennies. Soon he was able to bring his act to the stage. When he hit the stage, EB checked him out, and took the very young IJ aside to give him some help. IJ said that Barefield liked what he saw, but he made Jacquet change the order of his routine around, made him do a different opening, different middle, and then a proper finale. All with the elements IJ already had in his act, but in a better order of secquence. I don't think that IJ ever forgot that. And you see Jacquet doing his soft shoe on "On The Sunny Side of the Street." Man, it warms my heart to see that.

Lots of great players.....Fred Hunter, Bernard Purdie, Fred Joiner, Frank Lacy, Rudy Rutherford, Cecil Payne, Kenny Bolds, Grey Sargent, Eddie Preston, John Simon, Richard Wyands, Joe Caveseno, Irving Stokes, Johnny Grimes, E.V. Perry, and on and on. He always had a great band.

He was a tyrant on the bandstand and I really wanted to kill him more that once in my time in the band, but I learned what I needed to know to survive in the world of music. He was tough because he had to be. I miss him and if he came back down to earth and needed a band, I'd be the first in line to get on the bus.

Thanks for the memories Mr P.

Thanks for the positive feedback gents . Actually we should thank >hoffmannjazz<, who posted these great clips and a lot of other nice stuff on YouTube (and SOTW member and great tenor player LiAm84 who informed me about this).

sideC said:

... I see Eddie Barefield on the first vid. Man, now there's a legend. EB taught Lester Young, he taught Ben Webster, and he taught Jacquet. Jacquet told me that he started his career as a child dancer doing soft shoe on street corners for pennies. Soon he was able to bring his act to the stage. When he hit the stage, EB checked him out, and took the very young IJ aside to give him some help. IJ said that Barefield liked what he saw, but he made Jacquet change the order of his routine around, made him do a different opening, different middle, and then a proper finale. All with the elements IJ already had in his act, but in a better order of secquence. I don't think that IJ ever forgot that. And you see Jacquet doing his soft shoe on "On The Sunny Side of the Street." Man, it warms my heart to see that...

Click to expand...

Mr. SideC, thanks (again!) for taking the time to share your great stories and background information on Illinois Jacquet and his band with us, it's highly appreciated as you know. You can see the respect on the face of Illinois during Eddie Barefield's solo (around 6:25 in the first clip). Also thanks for the background on the dancing qualities of Jacquet (shown at around 13:55 in the first clip) and the roll of Eddy Barefield in that .

Good to see IJ playing Sonny Side on tenor in the first clip. During the concerts of the Band I saw in The Netherlands he played this tune on alto (also sounding fantastic on that horn). Didn't make any difference for him at all to play it in another key (alto versus tenor), always sounded great .

For those who never heard IJ on alto, check this 1996 clip (posted before here on SOTW):

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