Bobby Watson | |
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 Watson performing in 2008 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Robert Michael Watson Jr. |
| Born | August 23, 1953 Lawrence, Kansas, U.S. |
| Genres | Jazz |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, composer, educator |
| Instrument | Saxophone |
| Years active | 1970s–present |
| Labels | Roulette, Red, Blue Note, Columbia, Palmetto |
| Website | bobbywatson |
Robert Michael Watson Jr. (born August 23, 1953), [1] known professionally as Bobby Watson, is an American saxophonist, composer, and educator.
Watson was born in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, [2] and grew up in Kansas City, Kansas. He had four brothers. Watson credits his father as one of his greatest inspirations. His father played saxophone in addition to being a pilot and working for the Federal Aviation Administration. [3] The family moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, for his father's work with the FAA. While Watson was in junior high school there, a jazz history class he took helped him realize he was a jazz musician. [4]
He attended the University of Miami, [2] at the same time as Pat Metheny, Jaco Pastorius, and Bruce Hornsby. He graduated in 1975, moved to New York City, and became music director for the Jazz Messengers from 1977 to 1981. [2] After leaving the band, he was productive as a session musician, recording with Wynton Marsalis, Branford Marsalis, Max Roach, Joe Williams, Dianne Reeves, Lou Rawls, Betty Carter, and Carmen Lundy. He formed the band Bobby Watson & Horizon with bassist Curtis Lundy and drummer Victor Lewis, [2] with whom he played throughout the 1980s and 1990s. [5] In 1991, they released the album Post Motown Bop on Blue Note Records, with John Fordham in Q Magazine describing it as "gleaming, glossy bebop". [6]
Watson also led a group known as the High Court of Swing (a tribute to the music of Johnny Hodges), the sixteen-piece Tailor-Made Big Band, and is a founding member of the 29th Street Saxophone Quartet, an all-horn, four-piece group with alto saxophonist Ed Jackson, tenor saxophonist Rich Rothenberg, and baritone saxophonist Jim Hartog. Watson also composed a song for the soundtrack to the movie A Bronx Tale (1993).
A resident of New York for most of his professional life, he served as a member of the adjunct faculty and taught saxophone privately at William Paterson University from 1985 to 1986 and the Manhattan School of Music from 1996 to 1999. [5] He is involved with the Thelonious Monk Institute's annual Jazz in America high school outreach program.
In 2000, he was approached to return to his native midwestern surroundings on the Kansas-Missouri border. Watson was selected as the first William D. and Mary Grant/Missouri, Distinguished Professorship in Jazz Studies. [7] As the director of jazz studies at the University of Missouri–Kansas City Conservatory of Music, while still managing a worldwide performing schedule, Watson's ensembles at UMKC have received several awards. [8] Watson spent the 2019-2020 academic year as a Global Jazz Ambassador for UMKC. He retired from UMKC in 2020 and remains a Kansas City resident as he continues to tour internationally as a musician. [9]
In 2011, Watson was inducted into the Kansas Music Hall of Fame. [10] In 2013, he received the Benny Golson Jazz Master Award from Howard University. [11] On his 61st birthday, he was one of two living inductees into the American Jazz Walk of Fame in its first group of inductees in 2014. [12]
With the 29th Street Saxophone Quartet
With Art Blakey
With others
Hard bop is a subgenre of jazz that is an extension of bebop music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz that incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in saxophone and piano playing.
Arthur Blakey was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. He was also known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina after he converted to Islam for a short time in the late 1940s.
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Curtis DuBois Fuller was an American jazz trombonist. He was a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and contributed to many classic jazz recordings.
Bill Pierce is an American jazz saxophonist.
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, also called Moanin', is a studio album by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers recorded on October 30, 1958 and released on Blue Note later that year.
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Gypsy Folk Tales is an album by drummer Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers recorded in 1977 and released on the Roulette label.
Night in Tunisia: Digital Recording is an album by drummer Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers recorded in Japan in 1979 and released on the Dutch Philips label. The album was one of the earliest digital recordings of a jazz artist and was also released as a direct to disc recording in Japan.
Live at Montreux and Northsea is an album by drummer Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers Big Band recorded in 1980 at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland and released on the Dutch Timeless label.
The Jazz Messengers were a jazz combo that existed for over thirty-five years beginning in the early 1950s as a collective, and ending when long-time leader and founding drummer Art Blakey died in 1990. Blakey led or co-led the group from the outset. "Art Blakey" and "Jazz Messengers" became synonymous over the years, though Blakey did lead non-Messenger recording sessions and played as a sideman for other groups throughout his career.
"Yes sir, I'm gonna to stay with the youngsters. When these get too old, I'm gonna get some younger ones. Keeps the mind active."
The Jazz Messengers were a jazz band that existed with varying personnel for 35 years. Their discography consists of 47 studio albums, 21 live albums, 2 soundtracks, 6 compilations, and one boxed set.
Love Remains is an album by saxophonist Robert Watson which was recorded in 1986 and released on the Italian Red label.
On August 23, 2014, coincidentally his 61st birthday
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