OklahomaJazz

Featured Inductee

Earl Bostic

(April 25^th, 1913 – October 28^th, 1965)

Native Tulsan Earl Bostic was a jazz and rhythm and blues alto saxophonist and a pioneer of the post-war American rhythm and blues style. Bostic’s recording career was diverse, and included small group swing-based jazz, big band jazz, jump blues, organ-based combos, and a string of commercial successes.

The romantic and smooth sound of Bostic’s band, usually featuring the vibes of Gene Redd, piano of Fletcher Smith, bass of Margo Gibson, drums of Charles Walton, guitar of Alan Seltzer, and the marvellous alto saxophone of Bostic, was one of the great and distinctive sounds of both R&B and pop music, and his records became perennials on the juke-boxes during the fifties. Bostic was best known for his alto saxophone sound, but he also played tenor saxophone, flute and clarinet on his records. Bostic was formally trained in music, having received a degree in music theory from Xavier University. He moved to New York City and formed a jazz combo in 1938, and in the early forties he was playing in the Lionel Hampton band. He left Hampton in 1945 to form a combo, recording tracks for Majestic, but did not make much of an impression until he signed with New York-based Gotham in 1948. He had immediate success with ‘Temptation’ (US R&B number 10). During the fifties he recorded prolifically for Cincinnati-based King Records, and had two big singles, ‘Sleep’ (US R&B number 6) and ‘Flamingo’ (US R&B number 1), in 1951. The smooth but perky performance on the latter became his signature tune and made him something of a Beach Music artist in the Carolinas. During the sixties Bostic recorded a number of albums for King that ventured deeper into soul jazz territory. He succumbed to a fatal heart attack while playing a show in Rochester, New York.

Inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame in 1993, Earl Bostic’s life and legacy lives on.