Jesse Powell (February 27, 1924 - October 19, 1982) was an American jazz and jump rhythm & blues tenor saxophonist and was one of countless practitioners from Texas who became widely known for their full rich sound.
Jesse “Tex” Powell was born in Smithville, Bastrop County, Texas. He came from a musical family: his father played trumpet and his mother, the piano. He majored in music at Hampton University. When he registered for the draft in Fort Worth in 1942, he was working for the Armour Meat Packing Co.
He turned professional with the Hot Lips Page Band, staying for a year before joining Louis Armstrong in 1943 and then moving to the Luis Russell Orchestra a year later. In 1946 he replaced Illinois Jacquet in the Count Basie band. He then formed his own band and played on several blues sessions for Champion Jack Dupree, Willie Jordan, Doc Pomus and Brownie McGhee.
In 1948 he went out on his own but despite the tenor’s popularity as the primary rock instrument that year he was thwarted by the recording ban that wiped out nearly twelve months of studio dates, so he toured France with Howard McGee and The Jazz All Stars. In 1949 he went back to being part of a larger ensemble, this time playing bop with Dizzy Gillespie.
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| Fluffy Hunter |
He moved to New York in 1950 and in addition to his jazz playing he found himself in demand for session work for blues and rock sides for a variety of small independent labels. In late 1951 he played briefly with Loumell Morgan, a jive group pianist who had been one of the more popular club and radio acts for a decade, and who at the time was working with female vocalist Fluffy Hunter. The act caught the attention of Federal Records who saw in Powell and Hunter the kind of music that would appeal to rock listeners and signed them both. Powell led a makeshift band which included the rhythm section of Morgan’s group and Hunter sang on the records put out under Powell’s name with Hunter as the vocalist.
He got two singles of his own on the Federal label in late 1953 and early 1954 before joining Jubilee and Josie Records as their in house bandleader where he really came into his own backing vocal groups like The Cadillacs while also getting another opportunity to release some records of his own. In 1959 Jubilee Records issued his first album “Blow Man Blow.” He was one of the more frequent tenor horns hired for session duty for Atlantic Records, playing on many of their late 1950’s and early 1960’s classic sides and can be heard on recordings by the Clovers, the Drifters (“Fools Fall In Love”), Bobby Darin (“Splish Splash”) Solomon Burke (”Cry To Me”), and The Bobbettes (Mr. Lee) among others.
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| Jesse Powell with the Cadillacs |
After leaving Josie / Jubilee, Jesse recorded a single for the Fling label in 1960 (“Kingfish Rock”/“Let’s Talk It Over Baby”) before he signed with Tru-Sound in 1961, a subsidiary of the Prestige label. Dave Penny describes Powell’s 1961 LP “It’s Party Time” as “tremendous” and the album "that assured his place in music history”. Powell later cut one more album with his quintet “A Taste Of Honey” for Kapp in 1962. In his later years, he worked in Harlem and made only a few recordings, resurfacing briefly nearly ten years later in 1971 on guitarist Billy Butler’s “Nightlife” album.
Jesse Powell has been neglected by the reissue companies. The pick of the Josie / Jubilee tracks was released on three Various artists CDs on the British Sequel label in the 1990s, now hard to find. His 1953 Federal session was included on the Westside CD “Groove Station” in 1999. An 11-track mp3 collection with Federal and Josie recordings was released in 2014 by Vintage Music Association under the title “Hot Box”.
(Edited from Spontaneous Lunacy, AllMusic. This Is My Story, Uncle Marvy & Discogs)