George Kelly

George Kelly was the just musician to be always a regular person in both Al Cooper’s Savoy Sultans from the 1940s and Panama Francis’ Savoy Sultans of 40 years later on. Kelly began for the piano when he was nine before switching to alto and lastly tenor. He performed locally in Florida and Panama Francis was an early on sideman in his music group the Cavaliers; Kelly also gigged with Zack Whyte in 1938. After shifting to NY, the tenorman was using the Sultans during 1941-1944. Various other organizations included Rex Stewart (1946), bassist Lucille Dixon (1948-1950), and Tiny Grimes’ Highlanders. Kelly mainly caused lesser-known groupings in the ’50s and ’60s (apart from Warm Cole in 1965), toured European countries with Jay McShann and Small Grimes in 1970, and during 1970-1976 he was area of the Printer ink Spots’ backup music group. During his last 10 years he had an increased profile, visiting European countries with Ram memory Ramirez (1976) and becoming part of both fresh Savoy Sultans as well as the Harlem Jazz & Blues Music group. Kelly had a solid tenor firmness that looked back again towards the golf swing period while he was obviously aware of later on developments. Furthermore to numerous sideman appearances through the 1976-1984 period, George Kelly documented as a innovator for Dharma (1976), Dark & Blue (1979), Barron (1982), Vanacore (1982), Sam Warm (1984), and Stash (a tribute to Don Redman in 1984).