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RIP Hank Crawford

Not a good month for Ray Charles sax players. Fathead, Leroy, and now Hank. Comes in threes, my Grammy used to say.
 
This is very sad. I guess that it's like people who have been married for decades. Maybe they lose the will once the other one passes.
 
Ignorance is...well...ignorance. I only associated Hank Crawford with his music on the few CDs of his that I own. I had no clue he played with Ray Charles or anything else about for that matter. NPR had a rerun yesterday of short clip from an interview with Terry Gross. Mr. Crawford was 23-24 years old when he took over as leader of Ray Charles' band! I haven't had a chance to find the podcast but it should be there and well worth listening to.
 
Hank started on baritone saxophone with Ray Charles in 1958. A great example of his bari work can be heard on the legendary recording of David Newman called "Hard Times".

Hank led a band which worked as an opening act for the RC show, and toured and recorded on it's own during the downtime of the RC band. I remember seeing Hank's band live in Philly at the '64 Quaker City Jazz Festival. Lonny Shaw played bari that night, but Leroy Cooper was the regular bari player, David Newman played tenor, and the trumpet was Johnny Coles. I don't remember who played bass and drums, but there was no full time piano player, they were RC's opening act, after all. When piano was needed, Hank played very nice, tasty piano. He also wrote and arranged for his three horn, two rhythm unit.

He had big hit records in the mid '60s. Check out "Lorelei's Lament", "The Peeper", and "Whispering Grass". These were big radio hits back in the day when jazz musicians crossed over into the pop and easy listing part of the dial, and gained wide exposure and hopefully made a little cash.
 
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