1. Wardell Gray was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.
18 Facts About Wardell Gray
1. 2.
The youngest of four children, Gray was born in Oklahoma City.
3.
Wardell Gray spent his early childhood years in Oklahoma before he and his family moved to Detroit, Michigan in 1929.
4.
In early 1935, Wardell Gray began attending Northeastern High School, he was then transferred to Cass Technical High School.
5.
Wardell Gray married Jeri Walker in Chicago in September 1945.
6.
Wardell Gray left Hines late in 1946, settling in Los Angeles, California; soon after arriving, he recorded the first session under his name.
7.
In Los Angeles, Wardell Gray worked with Benny Carter, blues singer Ivory Joe Hunter, and the small group that supported singer Billy Eckstine on a tour of the West Coast.
8.
The success of "The Chase" was the break Wardell Gray needed, and he became increasingly prominent in public sessions in and around Los Angeles, including a series of jam sessions organized by the disc jockey Gene Norman.
9.
Outside from time spent with a small band led by Al Killian, Wardell Gray was still working mainly in one-off sessions during 1947.
10.
The group was not a financial success and Goodman eventually broke it up, but by now Wardell Gray was established on the East Coast as an up-and-coming musician.
11.
Wardell Gray left Basie in 1949 to return to Benny Goodman.
12.
The result of this were recordings of the band, both studio sessions, and live airshots, featured work by Wardell Gray that is below his own best standards.
13.
The only drawback to working with Basie was the constant traveling, and Wardell Gray eventually decided to leave so that he could enjoy more home life.
14.
In 1950, Wardell Gray played a live concert at the San Francisco Veteran's Memorial Hall as a guest with Gerald Wilson's band.
15.
Around this time, Wardell Gray became involved with drugs; friends reported that this was taking its toll.
16.
Wardell Gray's playing was now less fluent, and a studio session in January 1955, which was to be his last, shows strong but rather unsubtle playing.
17.
Wardell Gray was still working regularly despite his drug problems, and when Benny Carter was engaged in May 1955 to provide the band at the opening of the Moulin Rouge Hotel, he called on Wardell Gray.
18.
Wardell Gray's friends, working with the group of Benny Carter in LA, wanted no police trouble, so they put his body in a car and brought it to the desert.