Biography of Earl Bostic

An amazing technician, alto sax wizard Earl Bostic specialized during the 50s in arranging Tin Pan Alley standards as swinging, jazz-laced instrumentals. Born in Tulsa, OK, Bostic studied music at Xavier University in New Orleans. He played in the reed sections of Cab Calloway, Lionel Hampton, and Don Redman, arranged for Hampton, Louis Prima, and Jack Teagarden, and wrote the jazz standard "Let Me off Uptown." Bostic went solo in 1945 with That's the Groovy Thing for the Gotham label and scored an R&B hit for them in 1948 with "Temptation." Switching to Cincinnati's much larger King label, Bostic blew up a storm in 1951, enjoying major R&B smashes with "Sleep" and the chart-topping "Flamingo." He recorded prolifically for King until his death from a heart attack in 1965, waxing titles that ranged from "The Merry Widow Waltz" and "Liebestraum" to "Ubangi Stomp" and the astonishing "Up There in Orbit." ~ Bill Dahl