Night Lights (Gene Ammons album)

Last updated
Night Lights
Night Lights (Gene Ammons album).jpg
Studio album by Gene Ammons
Released 1985
Recorded February 2, 1970
Studio Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
Genre Jazz
Label Prestige
PR 7862
Gene Ammons chronology
Brother Jug!
(1969)
Night Lights
(1985)
The Chase!
(1970)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg [1]

Night Lights is an album by saxophonist Gene Ammons recorded in 1970 and released on the Prestige label. [2]

Gene Ammons American jazz tenor saxophonist

Eugene "Jug" Ammons, also known as "The Boss", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. The son of boogie-woogie pianist Albert Ammons, Gene Ammons is remembered for his accessible music, steeped in soul and R&B.

Prestige Records American jazz record label

Prestige Records is a jazz record company and label founded in 1949 by Bob Weinstock in New York City. The company recorded hundreds of albums by many of the leading jazz musicians of the day, sometimes issuing them under subsidiaries. In 1971, the company was sold to Fantasy, which was later absorbed by Concord.

Contents

Reception

AllMusic awarded the album 3 stars with its review by Scott Yanow stating, "One of his first recording sessions after he returned to the scene following a rather severe jail sentence was this tribute to Nat King Cole... was quickly forgotten as Ammons recorded some more commercial material and this set was not released for the first time until 1985. Ammons is in excellent form". [1]

AllMusic Online music database

AllMusic is an online music database. It catalogs more than 3 million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musical artists and bands. It launched in 1991, predating the World Wide Web.

Scott Yanow is an American jazz reviewer, historian, and author.

Nat King Cole American singer and jazz pianist

Nathaniel Adams Coles, known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American jazz pianist and vocalist. He recorded over one hundred songs that became hits on the pop charts. His trio was the model for small jazz ensembles that followed. Cole also acted in films and on television and performed on Broadway. He was the first African American man to host an American television series.

Track listing

  1. "Lush Life" (Billy Strayhorn) – 5:58
  2. "The Christmas Song" (Mel Tormé, Robert Wells) – 5:57
  3. "Nature Boy" (Eden Ahbez) – 8:14
  4. "Night Lights" (Chester Conn, Sammy Gallop) – 5:22
  5. "Sweet Lorraine" (Cliff Burwell, Mitchell Parish)
  6. "Calypso Blues" (Nat King Cole, Don George) – 5:41

Personnel

Tenor saxophone type of saxophone

The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (while the Alto is pitched in the key of E), and written as a transposing instrument in the treble clef, sounding an octave and a major second lower than the written pitch. Modern tenor saxophones which have a high F key have a range from A2 to E5 (concert) and are therefore pitched one octave below the soprano saxophone. People who play the tenor saxophone are known as "tenor saxophonists", "tenor sax players", or "saxophonists".

Wynton Kelly American jazz pianist

Wynton Charles Kelly was a Jamaican American jazz pianist and composer. He is known for his lively, blues-based playing and as one of the finest accompanists in jazz. He began playing professionally at the age of 12, and was pianist on a No. 1 R&B hit at the age of 16. His recording debut as leader occurred three years later, around the time he started to become better known as accompanist to singer Dinah Washington, and as a member of trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie's band. This progress was interrupted by two years in the United States Army, after which Kelly returned to Washington and Gillespie, and played with other leaders. Over the next few years, these included instrumentalists Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, John Coltrane, Roland Kirk, Wes Montgomery, and Sonny Rollins, and vocalists Betty Carter, Billie Holiday, and Abbey Lincoln.

Piano musical instrument

The piano is an acoustic, stringed musical instrument invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori around the year 1700, in which the strings are struck by hammers. It is played using a keyboard, which is a row of keys that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings.

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References

  1. 1 2 Yanow, S. AllMusic Review, accessed December 12, 2012
  2. Gene Ammons discography accessed December 13, 2012