Paul Gonsalves

American jazz musician

• Born: July 12, 1920
• Birthplace: Brockton, Massachusetts
• Died: May 14, 1974
• Place of death: London, England

Initially playing guitar, Gonsalves switched to tenor saxophone, playing professionally with jazz musicians Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie before finding a lasting place as one of Duke Ellington’s principal soloists from 1950 until 1974.

Early Life

Paul Gonsalves (pawl gahn-SAHL-vehz) was born in Brockton, Massachusetts, in 1920. Although later nicknamed “Mex,” Gonsalves was the son of Cape Verdean immigrants, who instilled in him a love of many kinds of music, including their native folk songs, and he was taught traditional Portuguese folk music from an early age. He was surrounded by music during his adolescence in Providence, Rhode Island, and learned guitar as a boy, playing a variety of music in a string band made up of family and friends. By his early teens he had given up music entirely in favor of sports, although exposure to his older brother’s record collection and hearing Jimmie Lunceford inspired him to take up tenor saxophone.

By the late 1930’s, Gonsalves was playing in dance bands and jazz groups in the Providence area, and he had acquired a thorough grounding in technique and tone production from his studies with a classical saxophone teacher. His musical career was interrupted when he served in the Army during World War II, during which he was stationed in India, where he played and recorded with Teddy Weatherford’s band. On his return to the United States he joined the popular Boston-based Sabby Lewis Orchestra, with which he played alto and tenor saxophone. While on tour with this band, Gonsalves was heard and hired by Count Basie, who needed a replacement for tenor saxophonist Illinois Jacquet. Gonsalves was an immediate success and remained until Basie broke up his big band in the fall of 1949. For the next year, Gonsalves worked around New York City until he was hired by Dizzy Gillespie for his big band. While working with Gillespie, Gonsalves was exposed to some of the more modern-styled players, although the band did not last long.

After leaving Gillespie’s band, Gonsalves was largely unemployed and down to his last few dollars when a chance meeting with Duke Ellington led to an audition with his band in December, 1950. His familiarity with Ellington’s style and repertoire, which Gonzalves acquired from his teenage record collection, served him in good stead, as did his appreciation for the saxophone styles of Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster. Gonsalves’s ability to fit into the Ellington band’s classic arrangements, as well as his own style, led to his employment in the band until shortly before his death in 1974.

Life’s Work

While Gonsalves recorded frequently during his tenure with Basie, his legacy was as an Ellingtonian. For the last twenty years of his life, he made numerous recordings with Ellington and participated in many more recording sessions without Ellington’s presence. However, virtually all of these sessions were with his fellow bandmates, and the flavor of the music was similar to what was played by the big band.

Gonsalves’s greatest recognition in jazz history came from his appearance at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival. The Ellington band, which at the time was at a low point in its popularity, was to close the festival with a performance of “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue.” Although this piece was not in the band’s regular book at the time, its performance electrified the crowd, especially during the twenty-seven-chorus blues solo by Gonsalves that bridged its two sections. While not extroverted in the style of Jacquet or Lockjaw Davis, Gonsalves’s solo brought the audience to a fever pitch and proved to be a rejuvenation of Ellington’s band and career. For his part, Gonsalves was elevated to become one of the best-known saxophonists of the day, although most musicians feel that his real strength was in his ballad artistry.

Gonsalves was forced to recreate his marathon solo on almost a nightly basis for the rest of his career, although Ellington thought highly enough of his abilities to feature him extensively on all his performances and recordings. From this standpoint the most notable of their collaborations was on Duke Ellington and His Orchestra Featuring Paul Gonsalves, released by Fantasy Records in 1962, on which Ellington had his band record eight of their standard arrangements with Gonsalves playing all the solos. In later years, Ellington was somewhat less willing to assign as much responsibility to Gonsalves, who had become unreliable because of a drug habit.

Significance

Paul Gonsalves had a long career as a jazz tenor saxophonist. Unlike most of his contemporaries, he did not gravitate to bebop or more modern forms of jazz, preferring instead to work in the swing idiom. His initial influence was Coleman Hawkins, and throughout his career Gonsalves maintained a devotion to tone and melodic construction that he learned from Hawkins and his disciples. That style fit Duke Ellington’s palette and Gonsalves is today remembered as one of Ellington’s principal voices.

Bibliography

Dance, Stanley. The World of Duke Elllington. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970. Includes a chapter on Gonsalves, focusing on his introduction into the Ellington band.

Morton, John Fass. “A Leading Voice Supported by Many Parts: Paul Gonsalves.” In Backstory in Blue: Ellington at Newport ‘56. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2008. Describes the Ellington band’s performance at the Newport Jazz Festival, devoting a chapter to Gonsalves’s now legendary solo on “Diminuendo in Blue and Crescendo in Blue.”

Tucker, Mark. The Duke Ellington Reader. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. A collection of pieces of Ellingtonia, including several appreciations of Gonsalves and his role in the band.

Welding, Pete. “Portrait Of Paul.” Downbeat, February 28, 1963, 18-19. A thorough interview with Gonsalves, detailing many early influences and associations.