Leo Parker

Leo Parker was the proud owner of the big, beefy baritone sax build and a fluent technique that struck an excellent match between your gritty, down-home feeling of R&B as well as the advanced harmonies of bebop. Initially, he examined alto in senior high school, also documenting with Coleman Hawkins’ early bebop music group at age group 18 on that device in 1944. But upon signing up for the famous Billy Eckstine bop music group in 1944-1945 and 1946, Parker turned to baritone and started to garner see. He caused Dizzy Gillespie’s music group on 52nd Road in 1946 and Illinois Jacquet’s group in 1947-1948, and documented with Body fat Navarro, J.J. Johnson, Dexter Gordon, and Sir Charles Thompson; he obtained popular with Thompson, “Mad Lad,” within the Apollo label. Parker appeared to be on his method, but drug complications — an epidemic in the bop community — held interfering along with his profession, and he documented just sporadically in the 1950s. In Sept and Oct 1961, Parker started a comeback over the Blue Be aware label with two exciting albums that effectively mixed his blues, gospel, and bop backgrounds. But just a few a few months later, a coronary attack felled him at age 36.