Ernie Watts with PCC Jazz: "The Miles and Trane Centennial Tribute Concert"

Ernie Watts, Tenor Saxophone;

Ernie Watts appears through the courtesy of a grant from the Johnny Carson Foundation

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PCC Jazz Faculty -

Gary Fukushima, Piano;

Steve Cotter, Guitar;

Zac Matthews, Bass;

Brian Carmody, Drums

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Program to be announced from the stage; featuring musical selections made famous by Miles Davis and John Coltrane

Ernie Watts started playing music when he was 13, at school in Wilmington, Delaware, the town where he was born. The music in his school was entirely classical, since there was no such thing as jazz in schools in the 1950s. He practiced every day on the saxophone the school had given him.

His neighbor, who was a jazz fan, heard him through the shared wall of their row house every day, and lent him a Dave Brubeck jazz record. His mother had bought him a small record player, so he now heard his first jazz and was amazed. He wanted to play that music, so his mother got him a subscription to the Columbia Record Club. The first record he received has become a classic in jazz.

He heard John Coltrane play on the album Kind Of Blue with Miles Davis, and said: "It rearranged all my chromosomes!"

Soon he was being recruited by other schools as well as his own, to play with their bands too. He and his other music student friends would take a bus up to New York on weekends to hear jazz live, and his direction in life was set.

After high school, he sent off a tape of his playing to Downbeat Magazine, which underwrote promising young musicians to attend the Berklee School of Music in Boston. Ernie won the saxophone scholarship that year. While there, he was able to hear John Coltrane play live several times during a tour.

Then Buddy Rich's big band came to Boston, and their alto saxophonist quit. Buddy's manager called Berklee to see if they had a bright young player they could send out to get them back to New York, where they could get a "real saxophone player." They sent Ernie, and when Buddy got to New York he kept him--for 3 years. Ernie laughs now and says, "I think I got the job."

This tour got him out to Los Angeles, where he worked for many years after leaving Buddy's band. He won two Grammys when working with Quincy Jones, and was in Johnny Carson's Tonight Show Band for the last 20 years of the show.

He worked extensively in the studios, and was on over 1500 recordings while there, including movies, TV, and countless records, working with everyone from Frank Zappa to Carole King, Marvin Gaye, Freddie Hubbard, Cannonball Adderley, The Temptations, Diana Ross, Diane Schuur, Billy Cobham, Aretha Franklin, Elton John, Thelonius Monk, Oliver Nelson, Sonny & Cher, the Jacksons, the Osmonds, Roberta Flack, The Commodores, Bill Withers, Barry White, Chuck Mangione, Arturo Sandoval, James Moody, Charlie Haden's Quartet West, Henry Mancini, Dave Grusin, Lee Ritenour, and countless others including Paul McCartney for the album Pipes of Peace (1983).

Film credits include: Arthur, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Grease, The French Connection, Ghostbusters, The Only Game In Town, The Toy (with Richard Pryor), 48 Hours, Roots, The Color Purple, and a documentary of the Rolling Stones 1981 tour "Let's Spend The Night Together". Ernie was playing with their group to help out, because they needed a new saxophonist, so Quincy sent Ernie. These are just a few film names of the many others he also did.

He also has his own Ernie Watts Quartets in the US and the EU. In 2004, Ernie and his wife Patricia started their own record company, Flying Dolphin Records, for Ernie to have creative control of his music. Ernie writes his own material for this use, sometimes in collaboration with his band.

Ian Patterson, of All About Jazz, described him thus:

"He is one of the greatest living tenor saxophonists, not only at the top of his game, but at the top of the game."

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