Jump, Jive and Wail

Jazz music lost ANOTHER legend yesterday...tenor saxophonist Sam Butera.

Sam Butera, a hard-swinging tenor saxophonist who formed a rowdy and successful onstage partnership with entertainers Louis Prima and Keely Smith in the 1950s, died Wednesday at a hospital in Las Vegas. He was 81.

He had Alzheimer's disease, according to a report in the Las Vegas Sun.

Prima, nearly 20 years older than Butera, was a composer ("Sing, Sing, Sing"), trumpeter, singer and irrepressible stage performer, a combination of Louis Armstrong and Jerry Lewis. His career was on the wane when he teamed in 1954 with Butera, who a few years earlier had been named the country's outstanding teenage jazz musician by Look magazine. Both men were New Orleans natives of Italian heritage.

"Sing, Sing, Sing" was a high school band staple when I was growing up. It gave you the opportunity to feature your drum section AND the horns and saxophones (which I played). Louis Prima has long been a personal favorite because of the sense of fun that the entire band put into their music as can be seen in the clip below.

Louis Prima - Sam Butera - Night Train
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You can also hear the virtuiosity of Butera in the Prima version of "Jump, Jive and Wail"



I can only begin to imagine the raccous jam session that will be happening in the heavenlies tonight! Koko, Louis (who died in 1978) and now Sam.......