Tom Archia

Tom Archia, Ernest Alvin Archia actually Jr., known as Sonny, he also appeared as Tom in Texas, (* November 26, 1919 in Groveton (Texas ); † January 16, 1977 in Houston ) was an American tenor saxophonist.

He began violin and then switched to saxophone. In his neighborhood in Houston, where he grew up, lived then Illinois Jacquet and his brother Russell. In high school he was in the school band ( under Percy McDavid ), with the Jacquet and Arnett Cobb brothers. 1935 heard Duke Ellington himself, whose compositions have been studied by the band during a visit to the band. He went to school with the band of Milt Larkin on tour with Eddie Cleanhead Vinson, Illinois Jacquet and Arnett Cobb. They played in rumboogie Club in Chicago, where the band members arrived from Texas were gradually lured away from the more well-known bands such as Lionel Hampton and Cootie Williams and Larkin finally had to give up in 1943. Archia took in 1943 with Roy Eldridge on. 1943/44, he was in the dream band of Rhumboogie café, also played Charlie Parker.

Mid -1940s he moved to Los Angeles, where he played in the combo of Howard McGhee, recorded with Illinois Jacquet and Helen Humes and Dinah Washington accompanied. In 1946 he was back in Chicago, where he played in the Macomba Lounge Club by Leonard Chess ( until it burned down in 1950 ) and recorded under his own name for Aristocrat Records (Tom Archia and his All Stars ). He also took with Wynonie Harris and Hot Lips Page on, be delivered tenor duels with Gene Ammons and played with Rhythm & Blues and Blues musicians (recording with Lonnie Johnson) and adopted in 1952 again on with Dinah Washington. In the 1960s, it went downhill with him - at times he could not play because of a broken jaw - and his sister brought him back in 1967 from Chicago to Houston, where he played in various bands (where he received a new nickname The Devil ). In 1973, he was with Arnett Cobb member of the Big Sonny Franklin band.

At his death in 1977 he was awarded a Jazz Funeral in the quarter- Fifth Ward in Houston, where he had grown up.