Zoot Sims born 29 October 1925

 John Haley "Zoot" Sims (October 29, 1925 – March 23, 1985) was an American jazz saxophonist, playing mainly tenor but also alto (and, later, soprano) saxophone. He first gained attention in the "Four Brothers" sax section of Woody Herman's big band, afterward enjoying a long solo career, often in partnership with fellow saxmen Gerry Mulligan and Al Cohn.

Throughout his career, Zoot Sims was famous for epitomizing the swinging musician, never playing an inappropriate phrase. He always sounded inspired, and although his style did not change much after the early 1950s, Zoot's enthusiasm and creativity never wavered.

Sims was born in 1925 in Inglewood, California, United States, to vaudeville performers Kate Haley and John Sims. His father was a vaudeville hoofer, and Sims prided himself on remembering many of the steps his father taught him. Growing up in a performing family, he learned to play drums and clarinet at an early age. His brother was the trombonist Ray Sims.

Sims began on tenor saxophone at age 13. He initially modelled his playing on the work of Lester Young, Ben Webster, and Don Byas. By his late teens, having dropped out of high school, he was a professional by the age of 15, playing in big bands, starting with those of Kenny Baker and Bobby Sherwood. He joined Benny Goodman's band for the first time in 1943 (he was to rejoin in 1946, and continued to perform with Goodman on occasion through the early 1970s). Sims replaced Ben Webster in Sid Catlett's Quartet of 1944. In May of 1944, Sims made his recording debut for Commodore Records in a sextet led by pianist Joe Bushkin, who two months earlier had recorded for the same label as part of Lester Young's Kansas City Six.

Sims served as a corporal in the United States Army Air Force from 1944 to 1946, then returned to music in the bands of Artie Shaw, Stan Kenton, and Buddy Rich. He was one of Woody Herman's "Four Brothers". 

On April 8, 1949, he recorded four sides with Stan Getz which were released on the New Jazz and Prestige labels in 1949 and 1950 The labels listed the artist as the Stan Getz Tenor Sax Stars and Stan Getz and his Four Brothers.

                              

From 1954-1956 he toured with his friend Gerry Mulligan's sextet, and in the early 1960s, with Mulligan's Concert Jazz Band.  Sims played on some of Jack Kerouac's recordings. From the late 1950s to the end of his life, Sims was primarily a freelancer, though he worked frequently in the 1960s and early 1970s with a group co-led with Al Cohn.  

In the 1970s and 1980s, he also played and recorded regularly with a handful of other musical partners including Bucky Pizzarelli, Joe Venuti, and Jimmy Rowles. In 1975, he began recording for Norman Granz's Pablo Records label. Sims appeared on more than 20 Pablo albums, mostly as a featured solo artist, but also as a backing musician for artists including Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan, and Clark Terry. Between 1974 and 1983, Sims recorded six studio albums with pianist Jimmy Rowles in a quartet setting that critic Scott Yanow wrote feature Sims at his best.

Sims acquired the nickname "Zoot" early in his career while he was in the Kenny Baker band in California. "When he joined Kenny Baker's band as a fifteen-year-old tenor saxophonist, each of the music stands was embellished with a nonsense word. The one he sat behind said "Zoot." That became his name."

Sims married journalist Louise Ault in 1970; the match was evidently a happy one: "His playing took on a new fullness and warmth," wrote Balliett. "By the mid-seventies he had become a saxophonist of the first rank." Although the couple lived in New York, Sims continued his itinerant ways during the decade, traveling to Australia with Goodman, and to Scandinavia with Cohn; he was honoured at the "Salute to Zoot" show at New York University in 1975. A few years later Sims' liver became infected from chronic alcohol abuse and he was faced with a choice: "Give up drinking," according to the Los Angeles Times,, "or give up living." "He opted for the former," Folkart wrote, "and went back out on the road as a sober saxophonist."

In 1982 Sims curtailed his performing schedule when doctors found a growth behind his right kidney. He recorded several memorable sessions on the Pablo label in the early 1980s, including Blues for Twowith guitarist Joe Pass, and On the Corner, a live set from the Keystone Korner in San Francisco. He played selective dates in the mid-1980s, and performed at an all-star event with Dizzy Gillespie and Benny Carter a few months before his death.

Through the years, he appeared in countless situations, and always seemed to come out ahead. Fortunately, Zoot Sims recorded over 50 albums during his four-decade career, leading sessions for Prestige, Metronome, Vogue, Dawn, Storyville, Argo, ABC-Paramount, Riverside, United Artists, Pacific Jazz, Bethlehem, Colpix, Impulse, Groove Merchant, Famous Door, Choice, Sonet, and a wonderful series for Pablo.

Sims' last studio recording was a November, 1984 trio session featuring bassist Red Mitchell, recorded in Sweden and released in 1985 by Sonet records. Zoot Sims died of lung cancer on March 23, 1985 in New York City, and was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, in Nyack, New York. 

(Edited from Wikipedia, AllMusic & Musician Guide)

Here’s a clip featuring Zoot Sims, tenor saxophone, Oscar Peterson, piano, Ray Brown, bass and Bobby Durham, drums.