- He was an American jazz and rhythm-and-blues saxophonist of the 1940s and '50s. He played in popular big bands led by Jay McShann, Lucky Millinder, and Duke Ellington before starting his own combo. His instrumental "Corn Bread" (1948) stayed on the Billboard R&B charts for 22 weeks, eventually reaching No. 1.
- He took violin lessons in childhood. He took up reed instruments in his teens, and decided on tenor sax after hearing Lester Young and Ben Webster. He attended what is now Hampton University, a historically black school in Virginia, before working in Midwest bands.
- In 1965 he moved to Paris because of the deteriorating racial climate in the US.
- He survived the 1921 Tulsa race massacre because a white woman put him and his mother on a train to Kansas at the onset of the troubles.
- Has two daughters, Stephanie, and Lina and four grandchildren.
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