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Paul Gonsalves

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Paul Gonsalves was born in 1920 in Brockton, Massachusetts, the son of Portuguese-Cape Verdean parents. He began on guitar and as a child played Cape Verdean folk songs for his family. He grew up in New Bedford and played tenor saxophone in the orchestra of Sabby Lewis. In the 1940s he also played with Cape Verdean American colleagues in the band of Phil Edmund. Then came the big bands of Count Basie, from 1947 to 1949, and of Dizzy Gillespie. In 1950 he joined the orchestra of Duke Ellington, where he became a regular soloist.

Music and breakthrough

His greatest moment came at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1956. In Ellington's Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue, Gonsalves played a solo of 27 choruses. The attention that performance drew is said to have revived Ellington's faltering career of the 1950s. The recording is on the album Ellington at Newport. Gonsalves was the soloist in numerous Ellington pieces and was given the nickname The Strolling Violins by Ellington, because he walked through the audience during his solos.

Influence

He also recorded under his own name, including Tenor Stuff (1961) and Salt and Pepper (1963). Gonsalves died in 1974 in London, ten days before Ellington himself. Mercer Ellington did not dare tell his father the news, for fear that the shock would speed up his decline.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue on Ellington at Newport. Notice how the tenor saxophone builds ever higher in the solo and how the audience reacts to it more and more.

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

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See also

Categories: Artists