12 Facts About Hal Stein

Harold Jerome Stein was an American jazz musician and bebop saxophone player.

Hal Stein began performing on the tenor saxophone in the early 1940s in New York City.

Hal Stein went on to work with Gene Krupa, Buddy Morrow, Les Elgart, Artie Shaw, Charles Mingus, Rudy Williams, Roy Haynes, Georgie Auld, Claude Thornhill, J C Heard and others.

Hal Stein embarked on a career as an educator, primarily to make a steady income to support his burgeoning family, while continuing to perform regularly.

Hal Stein led his own quartet during the 1970s and 1980s, Plank 'n Stein, featuring Al Plank on piano; later incarnations of his quartet were eponymous.

Hal Stein was an Ashkenazi Jew, although he rejected his religious upbringing in early adulthood.

Hal Stein's father, Ralph Stein, was born Raphael Eisenstein in Dvinsk, Russia in 1897; his surname was shortened to Stein at some point during his childhood after emigrating to the US in 1906, in order to assimilate.

Hal Stein's mother, Jeanette Weiss, the daughter of Hungarian immigrants, was born in New York City in 1903.

Hal Stein had one sibling, a sister named Marilyn, two years his junior.

Hal Stein married singer Shae Bevan in 1957; they divorced in 1977, and he did not remarry.

Hal Stein had three grandchildren, two of whom were born after he died.

Hal Stein was still active teaching and performing until just a few months before his death from lung cancer at age 79.