Al Sears

, Al Sears with Johnny Hodges (in the foreground) at the New York jazz club Aquarium, around November 1946.
Photograph by William P. Gottlieb .

Albert Omega "Al" Sears (born February 21, 1910 in Macomb , Illinois , † March 23, 1990 in New York City ) was an American band leader and tenor saxophonist of swing jazz and rhythm and blues .

biography

Al Sears began his professional career in 1927 while working at Pul Craig in Buffalo . He then moved to New York City ; there he became known when he replaced Johnny Hodges in Chick Webb's Ensemble in 1928 . He then served with the show Keep Shufflin ' on tour, played in the territory band of Zack Whyte in Elmer Snowden (1931-32) and started 1933-1941 own ensembles in Buffalo, Newport (Rhode Iceland) and Kentucky to conduct, u. a. with the singer Helen Humes .

In the early 1940s he worked in Andy Kirk's bands (1941/42) and had a short-lived orchestra in 1943, which also included Lester Young . He then played in 1943/44 with Lionel Hampton before he finally became a member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra , where he replaced Ben Webster in 1944 . He was one of Ellington's better-known soloists and stayed with him until 1949 when Paul Gonsalves took his place. He was heard in "The Blues" from the Black Brown and Beige suite (1944), in "Carnegie Blues" and "It Don't Mean a Thing" (1945), "Swamp Fire", "Hiawatha" (1946) and the "Liberian Suite" (1947).

Then Sears played 1951/52 with Johnny Hodges (" The Jeep is Jumpin ' ") and recorded with him the successful title "Castle Rock". In the 1950s he worked financially very successfully as a studio musician and was involved in numerous rhythm & blues albums. In 1960 he recorded two albums for Swingville Records . In 1961 he was a member of the Prestige Blues Swingers , which also included Vic Dickenson , Pee Wee Russell and Buddy Tate ( jam session in Swingville on Prestige ). In 1961 he also accompanied the singer Aretha Franklin .

, Al Sears, Junior Raglin , Shelton Hemphill , Junior Raglin, Django Reinhardt , Lawrence Brown , Harry Carney , Johnny Hodges in the New York Jazz Club Aquarium, around November 1946. Photo: Gottlieb

Discographic notes

Swing's the Thing (Prestige / Swingsville, 1960) with Don Abney , Wendell Marshall

Web links

Lexical entry

Richard Cook : Jazz Encyclopedia London, Penguin 2007
John Jörgensen, Erik Wiedemann : Jazz Lexicon . Munich, mosaic, 1967

personal data
SURNAME	Sears, Al
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Sears, Albert Omega (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American jazz musician
DATE OF BIRTH	February 21, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH	Macomb (Illinois)
DATE OF DEATH	March 23, 1990
Place of death	New York City