Earl Bostic Flamingo - Rtr4211 - Jazz - by Retrospective - Flamingo Flamingo The Man I Love The Major

This centenary tribute is the finest single CD now available of the fabulously unique alto sax sound of Earl Bostic, playing both R&B and standards. Earl Bostic (1913-1965) has carved a special niche for himself in the annals of great saxophone-players. Always a brilliant technician, from a background of playing in, and arranging for, jazz big-bands such as Lionel Hampton’s, he led a group that achieved great success playing Rhythm & Blues. He went on to become a household name when he took popular standards and gave them a hard-driving R&B edge, as with the lilting Latin number he took for his millionselling signature tune, Flamingo. It was Bostic’s alto that inspired all those later distinctively honking R&B saxes. The 27 tracks of Earl Bostic plays Flamingo presents a selection of the best of his R&B and then rather more of the best of his versions of standards, for which he is most famous. The R&B greats include Eight Forty-Five Stomp, That’s The Groovy Thing, Don’t You Do It, The Major AndThe Minor, Earl Blows A Fuse and his big hit version of Sleep. Among the many standards getting the invigorating Bostic treatment is, of course, his other major chart success, Temptation, as well as Cherokee, Moonglow, Lover Come Back To Me, The Man I Love and many more. Even Schubert’s Serenade emerges in a bracing new guise! Earl Bostic was an inspiration for several later tenor sax masters who can be heard in his band on this CD, from Don Byas to John Coltrane, Benny Golson and Stanley Turrentine.