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Tenor saxophonist Illinois
jacquet, who defined the jazz style called screeching and played
with jazz legends including Lionel Hampton, Count Basie and
Cab Calloway during a career spanning eight decades, died Thursday.
He was 81.
Jacquet, who was known as much for
his trademark porkpie hat as the innovative playing style,
died of a heart attack in his Queens home, said longtime friend
and collaborator Dan Frank.
Jacquet played with nearly every jazz
and blues legend of his time, including Louis Armstrong, Nat
King Cole, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Jo Jones, Buddy
Rich, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis and Gene Krupa.
He played tenor sax in the Basie and
Calloway bands and since 1981 performed with his own band,
the Illinois Jacquet Big Band.
President Clinton, an amateur saxophonist,
taped Jacquet to play at his inaugural ball in January 1993.
The duo jammed on the White House lawn, playing “C-Jam
Blues.” Jacquet also performed for Presidents Carter
and Reagan.
During his heyday in the 1940’s
and 1950’s, Jacquet recorded more than 300 original
compositions, including three of his biggest hits, “Black
Velvet,” “Robbins’ Nest” and “Port
of Rico.”
He was born Jean-Baptist Jacquet in
Broussard. His mother was a Sioux Indian and his father, Gilbert
Jacquet, a French-Creole railroad worker and part-time musician.
The nickname Illinois came from the
Indian word “Illiniwek,” which means superior
men. He dropped the name Jean-Batiste when the family moved
from Louisiana to Houston because there were so few French-speaking
people there.
Illinois Jacquet Image
Gallery
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