Jimmy Forrest

Jimmy Forrest was/is the focus of one of my other blogs, boloblues.blogspot.ca, where I hope(d) to provide the definitive online reference for Jimmy Forrest. I discovered Forrest during a period when I was studying the music of Count Basie quite intently, during the centenary of the Count's birth. Through my research I wound up watching The Last of The Blue Devils, a Bruce Ricker film. While watching this video I finally realized that Forrest was the same guy who played/wrote/borrowed Night Train. On a side note, in all the performance footage from The Last of The Blue Devils Forrest is playing on what appears to be an early Vito/Yamaha tenor. Why this is so remains a mystery for the ages, but it proves the old adage that - for serious players - the horn sounds like the player and not the other way around.

Forrest is notable for being among the few Big Band tenors to record with both iconic leaders, Basie AND Ellington. Forrest paid his dues in Kansas City in the late thirties and early forties, most certainly performing with Charlie Parker in the Jay McShann Orchestra. Regrettably, the first AFM ban came into effect at the time that Forrest and Parker were working together: to my knowledge, there is no recording of them together. Forrest ranks among my very favourite tenor players, drawing inspiration from Ben Webster at times, while drawing on the new harmonic vocabulary of post WWII jazz. Every Forrest recording from the 50s and 60s swings hard, including two of the greatest-ever jazz organ combo recordings led by Jack McDuff. I'm not sure who deserves the credit - Forrest or the A&R department - but Forrest had a knack for young jazz talent: no less than Joe Zawinul, Grant Green and Larry Young make their recording debuts with Forrest.

I could go on about Forrest, but I'll reserve boloblues.blogspot.ca for that enterprise. My final reason for putting Forrest here is for my all-time favourite classical music quote in a solo: Sabre Dance by Russian composer Aram Khachaturian (I finished a post on Russian ballet music earlier today). In The Last of the Blue Devils Forrest brilliantly works the melody into his solo on Moten Swing. Here he quotes the melody in one of his many R&B hits from the 50s, Coach 13. If you're looking for peerless straight-ahead, small group jazz, then try to find two recordings that Forrest made with Harry "Sweets" Edison, The Swinger and Mr. Swing.


I found the following site that has helpful biographical information on Jimmy Forrest, as well as some fine photos.

http://www.jazzwax.com/2012/08/jimmy-forrest-sit-down-and-relax.html