Frank Wess

Frank Wess ( born January 4, 1922 in Kansas City, † October 30, 2013 ) was an American jazz saxophonist ( tenor and alto ) and flautist of African-American origin, was known to a wide audience especially from his time with Count Basie. In 2007 he received the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship as an inspired soloist and one of the most influential jazz flutist.

Life and work

Wess began with classical music and played in the Kansas All State High School Orchestra, but then switched on moving to Washington in 1935 as a saxophonist in jazz jam sessions with other students like Billy Taylor and performed with Blanche Calloway. After military service in World War II, where he played in a military band, he joined Billy Eckstine 1946 the orchestra and played 1947/48 at Lucky Millinder, then at whose singers Bull Mouse Jackson. From 1949 he also played flute, which he was able to establish in the course of his career as a stand-alone instrument in jazz. He studied the instrument at the Modern School of Music in Washington. From 1953 he was in the Count Basie Orchestra, where he (later on Basie's request, also alto saxophone) played tenor saxophone and flute, and together with the other "Frank" in the band, the tenor saxophonist Frank Foster (of which more passionate play it by itself a harder sound deposed ), contributed much to their success in the 1950s. From 1959 to 1964 he won the Down Beat Critics Polls for flute. In 1964 he left Basie and played on Broadway in the musical bands and Begleitbands of television shows ( as a studio musician at ABC, for example at the shows of David Frost and Dick Cavett ). From 1967, he was New York Jazz Quintet at times, in the big band by Clark Terry and 1974 ( as a substitute for Hubert Laws ) in Roland Hanna. Between 1984 and 1986 he led a combo with Frank Foster; He also played for ten years in the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band. In the 1980s and 1990s he worked, inter alia, Mel Tormé, Sweets Edison, Billy Taylor, Benny Carter, Ernestine Anderson, Louie Bellson, 1981-1985 at the group Dameronia of Philly Joe Jones and Toshiko Akiyoshi with the jazz orchestra; Since 1989, he headed occasionally own big band. Wess died in late October 2013 from kidney failure.

Lexical Notes

• Ian Carr, Digby Fairweather, Brian Priestley: Rough Guide to Jazz. 2nd edition. Stuttgart, Metzler 2004, ISBN 3-476-01892- X.
• Martin Kunzler: Jazz Encyclopedia. 2nd edition. Volume 2, Rowohlt, Reinbek 2002, ISBN 3-499-16513-9.