Jimmy Forrest (January 24 1920 - August 26 1980) was a
jazzJazz is a musical art form which originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions....
musicianA musician is a person who performs or writes music. Musicians can be classified by their roles in creating or performing music:* An instrumentalist plays a musical instrument.* A singer uses his or her voice as an instrument....
who played
tenor saxophoneThe tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor, with the alto, is the most common type of saxophone. The tenor is pitched in the key of B, and written as a transposing instrument in the treble clef,...
throughout his career.
Born
Jimmy Robert Forrest Jr., he is famous for his first
soloIn music, a solo is a piece or a section of a piece played or sung by a single performer...
recordingSound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...
of "
Night Train"Night Train" is a twelve bar blues instrumental standard first recorded by Jimmy Forrest in 1951.-Origins and development:"Night Train" has a long and complicated history. The piece's opening riff was first recorded in 1940 by a small group led by Duke Ellington sideman Johnny Hodges under the...
", with its hook and classic tenor solo. He recorded frequently as both a
sidemanA sideman is a professional musician who is hired to perform or record with a group of which he is not a regular member. Sidemen are generally required to be adaptable to many different styles of music, and so able to fit smoothly into the group in which they are currently playing. Many sidemen are...
and a
bandleaderA bandleader is the leader of a band of musicians. The term is most commonly, though not exclusively, used with a group that plays popular music as a small combo or a big band, such as one which plays jazz, blues, rhythm and blues or rock and roll music....
. "Night Train" reached #1 on the Billboard
R&BR&B/Hip-Hop Songs, formerly the Black Singles Chart, is a chart released weekly by Billboard in the United States.The chart, initiated in 1942, is used to track the success of popular music songs in urban, or primarily African American, venues...
chartA record chart is a ranking of recorded music according to popularity during a given period of time. Examples of music charts are the Hit parade, Hot 100 or Top 40....
in March 1952, and stayed at the top for seven weeks.
Jimmy Forrest (January 24 1920 - August 26 1980) was a
jazzJazz is a musical art form which originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions....
musicianA musician is a person who performs or writes music. Musicians can be classified by their roles in creating or performing music:* An instrumentalist plays a musical instrument.* A singer uses his or her voice as an instrument....
who played
tenor saxophoneThe tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor, with the alto, is the most common type of saxophone. The tenor is pitched in the key of B, and written as a transposing instrument in the treble clef,...
throughout his career.
Biography
Born
Jimmy Robert Forrest Jr., he is famous for his first
soloIn music, a solo is a piece or a section of a piece played or sung by a single performer...
recordingSound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...
of "
Night Train"Night Train" is a twelve bar blues instrumental standard first recorded by Jimmy Forrest in 1951.-Origins and development:"Night Train" has a long and complicated history. The piece's opening riff was first recorded in 1940 by a small group led by Duke Ellington sideman Johnny Hodges under the...
", with its hook and classic tenor solo. He recorded frequently as both a
sidemanA sideman is a professional musician who is hired to perform or record with a group of which he is not a regular member. Sidemen are generally required to be adaptable to many different styles of music, and so able to fit smoothly into the group in which they are currently playing. Many sidemen are...
and a
bandleaderA bandleader is the leader of a band of musicians. The term is most commonly, though not exclusively, used with a group that plays popular music as a small combo or a big band, such as one which plays jazz, blues, rhythm and blues or rock and roll music....
. "Night Train" reached #1 on the Billboard
R&BR&B/Hip-Hop Songs, formerly the Black Singles Chart, is a chart released weekly by Billboard in the United States.The chart, initiated in 1942, is used to track the success of popular music songs in urban, or primarily African American, venues...
chartA record chart is a ranking of recorded music according to popularity during a given period of time. Examples of music charts are the Hit parade, Hot 100 or Top 40....
in March 1952, and stayed at the top for seven weeks. "Hey Mrs. Jones" (#3 R&B) and "Bolo Blues" were his other major
hitsA hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...
. All were made for
United RecordsUnited Records was in business from July 1951 to December 1957. It was operated by Chicago businessman Leonard Allen, initially in collaboration with Lew Simpkins...
, which recorded Forrest between 1951 and 1953.
Forrest was born in
St. LouisSt. Louis is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. With an estimated population of 354,361 in 2008, it is the principal municipality of Greater St. Louis, population 2,866,517, the largest urban area in Missouri and sixteenth largest in the United States...
,
MissouriMissouri is a state in the Midwest region of the United States bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. Missouri is the 18th most populous state with a 2008 estimated population of 5,911,605. It comprises 114 counties and one independent city....
and played alongside
Fate MarableFate Marable was a jazz pianist and bandleader.Marable was born in Paducah, Kentucky, and learned piano from his mother. At age 17, he began playing on the steam boats plying the Mississippi River...
as a young man. He was with
Jay McShannJay McShann was an American Grammy Award-nominated blues, mainstream jazz, and swing bandleader, pianist and singer....
in 1940-42 and with
Andy KirkAndrew Dewey Kirk was a jazz bass saxophonist and tubist best known as a bandleader....
from 1942-48, when he joined
Duke EllingtonEdward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader.Duke Ellington became one of the most influential artists in the history of recorded music, and is largely recognized as one of the greatest figures in the history of jazz, though his music stretched into...
. During the early 1950s, he led his own combos. He also played with
Miles DavisMiles Davis III was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer.Widely considered one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music including cool jazz, hard bop, free jazz...
, in the Spring of 1952 at The Barrel Club. After his solo career, he played in small combos with Harry "Sweets" Edison and
Al GreyAl Grey was a jazz trombonist who is most remembered for his association with the Count Basie orchestra.Grey is known for his plunger mute technique , and also wrote an instructional book called "Plunger Techniques".- Early life and career :Al Grey was born in Aldie, Virginia and grew...
as well as appearing with
Count BasieWilliam "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Widely regarded as one of the most important jazz bandleaders of his time, Basie led his popular Count Basie Orchestra for almost 50 years...
.
Forrest's version of "Night Train" was the
theme songTheme music is a piece that is often written specifically for a radio program, television program, video game or movie, and usually played during the title sequence and/or end credits...
of a nightly
rhythm and bluesRhythm and blues is the name given to a wide-ranging genre of popular music created by African Americans in the late 1940s and early 1950s...
radioRadio is the transmission of signals by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
program in the
HoustonHouston is the fourth-largest city in the United States and the largest city within the state of Texas. As of the 2008 U.S. Census estimate, the city has a population of 2.2 million within an area of 600 square miles . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of...
,
TexasTexas is the second-largest U.S. state in both area and population, and the largest state in the contiguous United States.The name had wide usage among native Americans, meaning "friends" or "allies"...
market that virtually introduced
whiteWhite people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
teenagers to what was then called
race musicRace music is the term used in the first half of the 20th century for the kinds of African American music of that time, like jazz, boogie-woogie, blues, jump blues, and rhythm and blues...
. The program, also called
Night Train, was hosted by William A. "Rascal" McCaskill, and was broadcast on KREL-AM from 1954 to 1957. The
Night Train show brought in more than 100,000 mail-in requests per year, and was the most listened to program in its time slot.
In his April 2000 book
The Devil and Sonny Liston, author
Nick ToschesNick Tosches is an American journalist, novelist, biographer, and poet of Albanian and Italian descent.- Life :After different odd-jobs, Tosches started writing with poetry and rock-'n'-roll magazines, including Creem, Fusion, and Rolling Stone.Tosches' second book, a biography of Jerry Lee Lewis...
notes that Forrest's music was a favorite of heavyweight boxer
Sonny ListonCharles L. "Sonny" Liston was a professional boxer who became world heavyweight champion in 1962 by knocking out Floyd Patterson in the first round. Liston was one of the most powerful punchers and jabbers in the history of boxing...
, also from St.Louis, who would listen to "Night Train" and other Forrest music during training sessions and before fights.
Late in life Forrest
marriedMarriage is a social union or legal contract between individuals that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged by a variety of ways, depending on the culture or demographic...
Betty Tardy and settled in
Grand RapidsGrand Rapids is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. The city is located on the Grand River and is approximately 30 miles from Lake Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 197,800, making it the 114th largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Kent County,...
,
MichiganMichigan is a Midwestern state of the United States of America. It was named after Lake Michigan, whose name is a French adaptation of the Ojibwe term mishigama, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
, where he later died.
Discography
- 1951: Night Train (United)
- 1952: Live at the Barrel (Prestige)
- 1959: All the Gin is Gone (Delmark Records
Delmark Records is an American Jazz and Blues record label. Based in Chicago since 1958 it originated in St Louis Missouri in 1953 when owner Robert "Bob" Koester released a recording by the Windy City Six, a traditional jazz group in 1953, under the 'Delmar' imprint.-History:Born in 1932 in...
)
- 1960: Forrest Fire (New Jazz)
- 1961: Out of the Forrest (Prestige)
- 1961: Sit Down and Relax with Jimmy Forrest (Prestige)
- 1961: Most Much (Prestige)
- 1962: Soul Street (New Jazz)
- 1972: Black Forrest (Delmark)
- 1982: Heart of the Forrest (Palo Alto Records
Palo Alto Records was a jazz record label that released most of its discography in the 1980s. The label was founded in 1981 by Jim Benham, who was a Palo Alto, California resident. The artistic director was Herb Wong. In 1985 the company ceased its activities...
/Muse RecordsMuse Records was an American record label which released jazz and blues music.Muse was founded in the early 1970s by Joe Fields, who had previously worked as an executive for Prestige Records in the 1960s...
)
- 1980: O.D. (Out 'Dere) (Greyforrest)
External links