Sam Butera (August 17, 1927 – June 3, 2009) was an American tenor saxophonist best noted for his collaborations with Louis Prima and Keely Smith. Butera is frequently regarded as a crossover artist who performed with equal ease in both R&B and the post-big band pop style of jazz that permeated the early Vegas nightclub scene.
He was born in New Orleans to Italian-American parents. His father Joseph owned a butcher shop in a Black section of the city, and played the guitar and the concertina in his spare time. At a wedding he was taken to at age seven, Sam Butera first saw and heard a saxophone, and, with his father's blessings, started taking lessons. He studied the clarinet at school but eventually returned to the sax, and at age 18 was featured in Look magazine (Life magazine's major competitor) as one of the top young jazzmen in the country.
He got a gig with Ray MicKinley right out of high school, and also played with Tommy Dorsey and Joe Reichman's bands. His major influences in those years included Charlie Ventura, Lester Young, Gene Ammons, Charlie Parker, and Big Jay McNeely, and he seemed to gravitate naturally toward swing and bebop. Ultimately, however, the biggest influence on his playing was Lee Allen, a member of Paul Gayten's band, with which he frequently played..
Butera married his high school sweetheart, Vera, in 1947 and they remained married until he died, raising four children. He formed his own group -- inspired by Gayten's band -- after returning to New Orleans, and they quickly began a four-year engagement at The 500 Club, which was owned by Louis Prima's brother. His sound reflected a vast range of influences, including modern jazz and R&B, and in 1951 Butera cut a pair of raunchy R&B instrumental sides that might have figured in the early history of white rock & roll if only they'd been released in time. He also had a featured spot in a Woody Herman concert that yielded both a chance for a new tour and a recording contract with RCA.
The resulting sessions in the fall of 1953 gave Butera a chance to rock out in an alternately soft and sweet, or hard and playful manner. There weren't any significant sales, but RCA had him back in early 1954 for a series of sessions for its R&B-oriented Groove label (home of Piano Red, among others), and his version of "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" was a modest regional hit. He played some R&B shows, including a celebrated tour as part of Alan Freed's first East Coast rock & roll showcase, and Butera's loud, wild sax sound won him an enthusiastic following. By 1955, however, he was back doing jazz with Ella Fitzgerald and Louie Bellson.
Louis Prima transitioned from big band to Vegas somewhat hastily, having signed a contract with the Sahara without having first assembled a back-up band. From his Vegas hotel room, Prima phoned Butera in New Orleans and had him assemble a band posthaste. Butera and the band drove from New Orleans to Las Vegas in such a hurry that they had not taken time to give their act a name. On opening night in 1954, Prima asked Butera before a live audience what the name of his band was. Butera responded spontaneously, "The Witnesses", and the name stuck.
Butera played a part in the movie The Rat Race (1960), starring Debbie Reynolds and Tony Curtis. He played a scam artist along with Joe Bushkin who fleeced Curtis out of his instruments.
The music can be heard on the LP and the CD released by Dot as a soundtrack of The Rat Race.
Butera remained the bandleader of The Witnesses for more than twenty years. During that time, he performed with Louis Prima and/or Keely Smith on such Prima-associated songs as "That Old Black Magic", "Just a Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody,""Come on-a My House," and "I Wan'na Be Like You" (from Disney's The Jungle Book). Richard and Robert Sherman, composers of the songs for the Disney animated film, agreed to cast Prima, Butera and their band after executives from the Walt Disney Company urged them to travel to Las Vegas to witness the band’s live act in person.
Butera is noted for his raucous playing style, his off-colour humour, and the innuendo in his lyrics. The arrangement he made with Prima of "Just a Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody" has been covered by David Lee Roth, Los Lobos, Brian Setzer, The Village People, and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. In addition to his accomplishments as a saxophonist and composer, Butera is widely regarded as the inspiration for the vocal style of fellow New Orleans-born jazz singer Harry Connick, Jr.
Butera died from complications of pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease on June 3, 2009 at Sunrise Hospital, Las Vegas, Nevada where he had been since early January. He was 81years old. In Sam's own words and the way he ended every show, "It's nice to be important, but it's important to be nice ... stay well."
(Edited from AllMusic, Wikipedia & Las Vegas Review)