One of the most versatile veterans of bebop and beyond, saxophonist Red Holloway died Saturday in San Luis Obispo, CA, at age 84. The cause was kidney failure, complicated by several strokes. Holloway had performed as recently as September 2011, touring with the Lionel Hampton All-Stars.Born on May 31, 1927 in Helena, Arkansas, James “Red” Holloway was the son of musicians. His mother was a pianist, his father a violinist. Red moved with his mother to Chicago at age five, where she insisted that he learn the piano; he also took up banjo and harmonica. He began tenor sax at age 12 and, as a member of the DuSable High School band, he played with fellow student Johnny Griffin. He played his first pro gig in 1943 with Eugene Wright’s Dukes of Swing. At 19 he enlisted in the Army and became headmaster of the U.S. Fifth Army Band. Back in Chicago after the service, he played with Yuseff Lateef and Dexter Gordon before joining Roosevelt Sykes and touring with various blues artists. In the 50s, he played with Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Lionel Hampton, and Sonny Stitt, among others, but it was not until the 60s and his affiliation with Jack McDuff and George Benson that he received widespread recognition.
In the late 60s he moved to LA where he managed talent for the famed Parisian Room for the next fifteen years. During that time, he toured frequently with Sonny Stitt until Stitt’s death in 1982. Mostly recently he partnered with Clark Terry and Kevin Mahogany. In addition to his own recordings and bands, Holloway has performed or recorded with Jack McDuff, Clark Terry, Plas Johnson, Horace Silver, George Benson, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Red Rodney, and Lionel Hampton, and accompanied singers Etta James, Joe Williams, Carmen McRae and Jackie Ryan. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Los Angeles Jazz Society in 2004.
Of his versatility across the broad genre of jazz, Holloway once told Jazz Journal International, "Music to me is music. I really don't care what kind it is. I just try and figure out how I can make that particular type of music swing. That's what is important."
Holloway was divorced, and is survived by sons Michael and John; daughters Lianne Holloway, Marsha Aregullin and Denice Holloway-Rivers; six grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. A third son, James "Binkey" Holloway, died in 1995.
Source
Posted 02/2012
Channel Sponsor
