Lou Donaldson

Alto saxophonist and composer born in Badin, North Carolina on November 1, 1926, Lou Donaldson is known for his composition "Blues Walk" and his recordings as a leader of hard bop or soul jazz groups. Although he learned musical practice early from his mother and his father, a preacher and music teacher, Louis Andrew Donaldson Jr. studied the clarinet as a teenager, before trying the alto saxophone. Influenced by Charlie Parker, he played in an orchestra during his military service and had his first session with pianist Horace Silver. He accompanied Thelonious Monk, Milt Jackson, Clifford Brown, Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers and performed in New York clubs such as the Five Spot or the Half Note. Signed by the Blue Note label, he recorded twenty-six albums as a leader starting with New Faces - New Sounds (1952), in different configurations, as evidenced by the compilation Quartet - Quintet - Sextet (1957). The great success of this hard bop period was the album Blues Walk (1958) and its title theme. In addition to a few sessions for Argo and eight albums for Cadet, Lou Donaldson turned to the soul jazz style, giving rise to emblematic recordings such as Gravy Train (1962), The Natural Soul (1963), Alligator Boogaloo (1967), Hot Dog (1969), Say It Loud! (1969) or Everything I Play Is Funky (1970), in which his penchant for the blues and his attraction to a funky rhythm were combined. Welcomed with fervour in Europe, the saxophonist with his sure and efficient technique did not however approach - unlike many colleagues - the shores of free jazz and continued to evolve in his favourite genre within the Cotillion and Muse labels. A prolific composer and accompanist, he then saw invitations become rarer, while a new generation of acid-jazz fans discovered him and some of his phrases were sampled. Returning after a long period of silence, he recorded three albums for the Milestone label and Sentimental Journey (1995) for Columbia. Thanks to this renewed interest, the Blue Note label released studio sessions or unreleased concerts such as The Scorpion: Live at the Cadillac Club (1995) or A Man with a Horn (1999). In 1998, he participated with Etta Jones in Junior Mance's album Mance, released in 2000, and then continued to perform in New York and at festivals. He received the title of NEA Jazz Masters in 2012 and gave his last concerts in 2017. In 2021, he came out of retirement to celebrate his ninety-fifth birthday at Dizzy's Club, during an evening in his honor. He reappeared on his 96th and 97th birthdays, before dying of pneumonia on November 9, 2024, at the age of 98.