Gene Ammons

Born in Chicago in 1925, the son of boogie-woogie pianist Albert Ammons, Gene Ammons picked up the tenor saxophone as a teenager and was working professionally by eighteen. His first major gig came with Billy Eckstine's orchestra in 1944, where he shared the saxophone section with Dexter Gordon and Sonny Stitt. The "battles" with Stitt became a lifelong musical partnership and rivalry that produced some of the most exciting two-tenor records in the catalog.

Ammons signed with Prestige in the early 1950s and became one of the label's most reliable artists, recording prolifically in a style that bridged the gap between rhythm and blues honking and hard bop sophistication. His tone was the key: enormous, warm, instantly identifiable from the first note of any record. Boss Tenor, recorded in 1960 with a quartet plus Ray Barretto on conga, remains the definitive statement of his art and one of the essential tenor saxophone records of the era.

Two extended prison sentences for narcotics possession (1958 to 1960, and 1962 to 1969) interrupted his career at its peak. Each time he returned, he sounded as commanding as before, his tone undiminished and his sense of time unshaken. The comeback albums from 1969 onward are among his strongest work. He died of bone cancer on August 6, 1974, at forty-nine.