[JPL] Baritone Saxophonist Gene Allen, RIP

[Jazz Promo Services]

>From Marc Myers Jazzwax page--scroll down, it is in the middle.

http://www.jazzwax.com/2008/03/sunday-wax-bits.html

Gene Allen, RIP. Gene Allen, one of the most sought after session baritone
saxophonists of the late 1940s and 1950s, passed away last week. Along with
baritone saxophonists Danny Bank, Sol Schlinger and Charlie O'Kane, Allen
played on a vast majority of large-ensemble record dates during this period.
Allen, like his baritone-sax peers, could read any arrangement cold and nail
it on the first play-down, no matter how experimental or nettlesome. During
the 1950s and early 1960s, Allen recorded with Claude Thornhill,
Sauter-Finegan, Nat Pierce, Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Gerry Mulligan's
Concert Band and many others.

Among my favorite Gene Allen tracks are four recorded during a small-group
session led by trumpeter Tony Fruscella. The other musicians on the 1952
date included tenor saxophonist Phil Urso and alto saxophonist Herb Geller.
The four tunes‹now available on Tony's Blues here‹were P.U. Stomp, Darn that
Dream, Tangerine and Loopadoo.