Lee Allen

Back when rock & roll burst out of roadhouses and clubs on the wrong side of town and onto the airwaves, the saxophone was every bit as important as the guitar, piano, or drums in defining the sound -- a few players, like Rudy Pompili, did emerge as stars in their own right, with serious audiences and a lot of name recognition; others, like Jimmy Wright, the reedman and bandleader in residence for George Goldner's various labels, deserved stardom but never got it. Directly in between them was Lee Allen, who played on dozens of hits and many hundreds of sides, by artists including Fats Domino, Lloyd Price, and Little Richard, but never managed to make a lasting foothold on the charts himself. In the process of trying, though, he generated one of the finest and most-beloved instrumental albums to come out of the New Orleans R&B boom of the 1950s. Lee Allen was born in Pittsburg, KS (some sources claim Sewanee, TN), in 1926. Following the death of his father in 1927, his mother moved the family to Denver, CO, where Allen grew up. He showed a natural musical aptitude as a boy and gravitated toward the saxophone, which was an integral part of the swing sound that was in full bloom, as well as the sounds of jump blues. Allen was also a talented athlete, which allowed him to qualify for a combined athletic and music scholarship from Xavier College in New Orleans. He arrived in the city just as postwar rhythm & blues were coalescing -- by that time, he was under the spell of Coleman Hawkins and Gene Ammons, and he began playing locally while still in college. By 1947, he'd forsaken a future on any playing field in favor of blowing sax in a band fronted by Paul Gayten. He soon crossed paths with producer/composer/bandleader Dave Bartholomew and, through him, ended up playing...