Buster Bennett (March 19, 1914 – July 3, 1980) was an American blues saxophonist and blues shouter. His nickname was "Leap Frog". At various times in his career, he played the soprano saxophone, the alto, and the tenor. He was known for his gutbucket style on the saxophone. He also played the piano and the string bass professionally.He appeared on 28 recording sessions between 1938 and 1947.
James Joseph “Buster” Bennett was born in Pensacola, Florida. Nothing is known about his early days. When he cut his first recordings in 1938, he was a highly distinctive, gutbucket stylist with many 1920s features still adhering to his playing (not least of them his continued use of the soprano sax, which was way out of fashion by this time). All of this suggests that he learned early and was playing profesionally in his teens. By 1930 or so, he was working professionally in Texas, but he spent most of his active career (1938 to 1954) in Chicago.
He was employed as a session musician by Lester Melrose from September 1938 to 1942. He would work the studios with Big Bill Broonzy, The Yas Yas Girl, and Monkey Joe; his most fruitful association seems to have been with Washboard Sam, who found his alto (or soprano) sax to be an ideal melody instrument. He also did two non-Melrose sessions with Jimmie Gordon, under the direction of Sammy Price. Ransom Knowling (bass player on many Melrose sessions) once told Bob Koester that Buster Bennett got on a lot of sessions because he was so adept at extracting advances on his salary from Walter Melrose, who would then have to schedule him for another session to recoup. Some documentary evidence supports the claim that Buster was also in the habit of drawing advances from nightclub owners.
Busters claim to fame stems from his own three-year contract with Columbia, which ran from 1945 through the end of 1947 (he did one final session with Broonzy, just getting back into the studios after the 1942 recording ban, right before starting to record under his own leadership). On paper he might look like Louis Jordan, but the two had little in common besides leading a small combo, singing, and playing alto sax. Columbia wanted Buster to sing blues; he came across as more of a strict blues singer than Jordan, and a lot less polished vocally.
L-R: Arrington Thornton, Buster & Duke Groner
Where
Jordan was a consummate Swing player, Bennett's alto and soprano sax stylings
(hardly anyone else was playing soprano in the late 1940s) were vigorous but
had a quaint, almost 1920s tone and rhythmic feel. When Bennett employed front
line partners (usually in the studio, not on the gigs he most often played with
just sax, piano, and bass), he was careful to find complementary horn players
who swung more and rocked less than he did. In 1946 and 1947, he made the
(seemingly inevitable) R&B soloist's move to tenor sax. He hired beboppers
to complete his front line, and started copping a few licks himself.
In early 1946, while under contract to Columbia, Bennett appeared, under the name of his trumpet player, Charles Gray, on a recording for the short-lived Chicago label Rhumboogie. He also made an unannounced appearance on a Red Saunders session for Sultan Records in 1946 and on a "tenor battle" session with Tom Archia for Aristocrat Records in 1947. At the height of his popularity, in the late 1940s, he was known for his ability to draw customers into a South Side club—and for his cantankerous personality. On one occasion, he and Preston Jackson got into a fistfight at the Musicians Union hall, over a $2 debt.
The end of Bennett's recording contract came with the general fall-off of blues recording in Chicago by the majors. Indeed, Columbia would shut down its 30000 "race" series in 1950. It would be interesting to know how Bennett's style evolved after the end of 1947. Despite an appearance on one of the first sessions for Aristocrat, he never caught on with Chess or the other independents that were taking over blues recording locally. Since Chess was willing to give his former employers Big Bill Broonzy and Washboard Sam a tryout, Buster's legendary temperament may have had something to do with that.
By 1956 Bennett suffered from health problems that required him to quit playing professionally, and he ended up leaving Chicago and retiring in Texas where he lived out the remainder of his life. Houston newspapers did absolutely nothing to commemorate his passing on July 3, 1980 at the age of 66 and there was no obituary and not even a notice in the column for area deaths.Sadly Buster has been pretty much forgotten, except among collectors of the most obscure blues material.In 2002, the first (and so far only) comprehensive reissue package of Buster's work as a leader appeared on Classics 5037.
(Edited from Wikipedia, Jazz critic Robert Campbell’s bio)