Booker Ervin born October 31, 1930

Booker Ervin (October 31, 1930 – August 31, 1970) was a powerful, blues‑driven American tenor saxophonist best known for his work with Charles Mingus and his influential series of Prestige albums in the 1960s.

Booker Telleferro Ervin II was born in Denison, Texas, United States. He came to the tenor saxophone late and by an unlikely road: his father, who had played trombone with Buddy Tate, taught him that horn first, and Ervin only took up the tenor saxophone in the U.S. Air Force, teaching himself while stationed in Okinawa, Japan.  After completing his military service in 1953, he pursued formal training at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. After studying music in Boston for two years, he moved to Tulsa in 1954, he played with the band of Ernie Fields. After stays in Denver and Pittsburgh, Ervin moved to New York City in spring 1958, initially working a day job and playing jam sessions at night. What came out of that horn was one of the most distinctive sounds in jazz — a tenor that didn’t just sing but cried, smeared and testified, Texas blues and gospel carried in every bent note.

Charles Mingus

Charles Mingus heard it before almost anyone, and from late 1958 Ervin was the bassist’s tenor of choice through his greatest run of albums. On Mingus Ah Um his mournful solo carries “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat,” Mingus’s elegy for Lester Young; a year later, on Blues & Roots, his preaching chorus on “Moanin'” became the sound that record is remembered by. Mingus was the most demanding bandleader in jazz, and no saxophonist was trusted with more of his music. Ervin worked with Mingus regularly until 1960, rejoining various outfits led by the bassist at various times up to autumn 1964, when he departed for Europe. During the mid-1960s, Ervin led his own quartet, recording for Prestige Records with, among others, ex-Mingus associate pianist Jaki Byard, along with bassist Richard Davis and Alan Dawson on drums.

                           

Ervin later recorded for Blue Note Records and played with pianist Randy Weston, with whom he recorded between 1963 and 1966. Weston said: "Booker Ervin, for me, was on the same level as John Coltrane. He was a completely original saxophonist. He was a master."  Ervin’s own records turned his nickname into a bibliography. 

The band called him “Book” — Randy Weston remembered the chant of “Cook, Book, cook” — and the leader albums followed the pun: The Book Cooks in 1960, a two-tenor debut alongside Zoot Sims, then the Prestige run with pianist Jaki Byard, bassist Richard Davis and drummer Alan Dawson. Its peak came on December 3, 1963, at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in Englewood Cliffs: The Freedom Book, five long, searching performances that stretch hard bop toward freedom without ever letting go of the blues. The Song Book, The Blues Book and The Space Book completed the set within the year.

Between October 1964 to summer 1966, Ervin worked and lived in Europe, playing gigs in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and The Netherlands. Basing himself in Barcelona, Spain, he featured regularly at the city's Jamboree Club. He recorded and broadcast while overseas, making albums with his own quartet, Dexter Gordon and Catalan vocalist Núria Feliu, featuring on various radio programmes and appearing at several jazz festivals, including a guest slot at the 1965 Berlin Jazz Festival, during which he performed a 25-minute improvisation. This performance was issued as "Blues For You" on the album Lament For Booker Ervin (Enja Records) in 1977.

Following his return to the United States in summer 1966, Ervin led his own groups in jazz clubs throughout the country, and appeared at both the Newport Jazz Festival (1967) and the Monterey Jazz Festival (1966) performing with Randy Weston; a recording of their performance was issued on CD in 1994. In 1968, Ervin again appeared at clubs and festivals in Scandinavia, broadcasting with the Danish Radio Big Band. He recorded again for Prestige, but in late 1966 was signed to West Coast label, Pacific Jazz, for whom he taped two albums, Structurally Sound and Booker 'n' Brass (1967), before switching to Blue Note.

Ervin recorded two Blue Note albums under his own name, In Between and Tex Book Tenor, the latter going unissued during his lifetime, initially being released in the 1970s as part of a double album shared with recordings (on which Ervin features) made under the leadership of Horace Parlan (Back from the Gig). Ervin's final recorded appearance occurred in January 1969, when he guested on a further Prestige album headed by teenage multi-instrumentalist Eric Kloss.

Ervin died of kidney disease in New York City in 1970, aged 39. Most biographical accounts of Ervin's death give an incorrect date. His gravestone in The National Cemetery, East Farmingdale, New York, clearly shows the date as August 31, 1970.

(Edited from Wikipedia & The World Of Sax)