Sax Expat
Sax Expat
Don Byas
Don Byas (1913–1972) may be lesser known than the counterparts he played with—Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Dizzy Gillespie, among others—but he was an enigma. He never stayed with a band for long, and eventually went solo partly to make more money and partly due to his inability to work with bandleaders. Often drinking to excess, alcohol fueled his sometimes-erratic behavior on and off the bandstand. He went through at least thirteen different groups in fifteen years of professional play before leaving for Europe in 1946.
Despite his fractious personality, in Europe he found peace and contentment as a family man in the Netherlands, where he lived out his days with his second wife and their four children. He learned at least seven languages during his years in Europe, and on traveling to a new country could pick up a few phrases in short order, soon speaking to the locals and even composing songs in their native tongue.
In Sax Expat: Don Byas, author Con Chapman argues that Byas’s relative obscurity arises from his choice to live in Europe, where he missed out on recording opportunities and exposure in the US that would have made him renowned and wealthier. His numerous achievements, including his solo on Count Basie’s “Harvard Blues,” which is a model of restrained invention; his interpretation of the sentimental movie theme “Laura”; and his duets with bassist Slam Stewart were included in the Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz and secured Byas’s place in jazz history. This biography brings to life an amazing jazz story.
Don Byas is a classic example of an artist who one friend described as ‘never being in the right place at the right time.’ A transitional figure in the early forties when sides were expected to be taken in jazz’s evolution from swing to bop, an expatriate who left America before it became fashionable and died before it became a marketable asset, he is near the top of any list of the music’s forgotten giants. As in his previous books on Johnny Hodges and Kansas City jazz, Con Chapman applies scrupulous research, a winning narrative voice, and discerning taste in a book that should set the record straight.
As an eternal fan of the great Carlos Wesley ‘Don’ Byas since the age of twelve years old, I find this biography Sax Expat: Don Byas beyond essential reading. Con Chapman does his due diligence and clears up the mysteries from the elusive legend of this vital and transitional saxophonist. Sax Expat triumphantly succeeds in persuading the reader to re-evaluate the historical and artistic position of the original ‘DON’ in the grand picture of Black classical music!
Don Byas was a rare figure in jazz. This book gives us the story of a most interesting life in all necessary detail.
Standing on the cusp of the swing era and bebop, Don Byas remains an underappreciated soloist. Con Chapman offers a revealing portrait of this uncompromising man and his stylish music.
Con Chapman is a Boston-area writer and author of Rabbit’s Blues: The Life and Music of Johnny Hodges, winner of the 2019 Book of the Year Award by Hot Club de France, and Kansas City Jazz: A Little Evil Will Do You Good, nominee for 2023 Book of the Year Award by the Jazz Journalists Association. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, and other publications.
