Reuben Phillips was an American jazz saxophonist, arranger and bandleader, born in Providence

Providence, Kentucky

Providence is a city in Webster County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 3,611 at the 2000 census. The city is named after Providence, Rhode Island....

, Kentucky

Kentucky

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

.

After five years as an alto saxophonist with Andy Kirk

Andy Kirk

Andrew Dewey Kirk was a jazz saxophonist and tubist best known as a bandleader of the "Twelve Clouds of Joy," popular during the swing era....

 and his Clouds of Joy, he played with Willis Jackson (1950) then Josephine Baker

Josephine Baker

Josephine Baker was an American dancer, singer, and actress who found fame in her adopted homeland of France. She was given such nicknames as the "Bronze Venus", the "Black Pearl", and the "Créole Goddess"....

 and Louis Jordan

Louis Jordan

Louis Thomas Jordan was a pioneering American jazz, blues and rhythm & blues musician, songwriter and bandleader who enjoyed his greatest popularity from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as "The King of the Jukebox", Jordan was highly popular with both black and white audiences in the...

(1951). From 1952, Phillips has been a free lance arranger, musician and band leader in the New York area. He made arrangements for Dinah Washington

Dinah Washington

Dinah Washington, born Ruth Lee Jones , was an American blues, R&B and jazz singer. She has been cited as "the most popular black female recording artist of the '50s", and called "The Queen of the Blues"...

, Lavern Baker

LaVern Baker

LaVern Baker was an American rhythm and blues singer, who had several hit records on the pop chart in the 1950s and early 1960s. Her most successful records were "Tweedlee Dee" , "Jim Dandy" , and "I Cried a Tear" .-Early life:She was born Delores LaVern Baker in Chicago, Illinois...

, Ruth Brown

Ruth Brown

Ruth Brown was an American pop and R&B singer-songwriter, record producer, composer and actress, noted for bringing a pop music style to R&B music in a series of hit songs for Atlantic Records in the 1950s, such as "So Long", "Teardrops from My Eyes" and " He Treats Your Daughter Mean".For these...

, Billy Ward, Earl Bostic

Earl Bostic

Earl Bostic was an American jazz and rhythm and blues alto saxophonist, and a pioneer of the post-war American Rhythm and Blues style. He had a number of popular hits such as "Flamingo", "Harlem Nocturne", "Temptation", "Sleep", "Special Delivery Stomp", and "Where or When", which showed off his...

, Arnett Cobb

Arnett Cobb

Arnett Cobb was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.Cobb was born Arnette Cleophus Cobbs in Houston, Texas. His musical career began with the local bands of Chester Boone, from 1934 to 1936, and Milt Larkin, from 1936 to 1942...

 among others.

He also played and recorded with Gene Redd, Sammy Lowe

Sammy Lowe

Sammy Lowe was an American trumpeter, arranger, and conductor.Lowe was active both in jazz and in R&B music, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s. From...

, George Rhodes, Dud Bascomb

Dud Bascomb

Wilbur Odell "Dud" Bascomb was an American jazz trumpeter best known for his tenure with Erskine Hawkins. He is a 1979 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame....

, and later recorded with Willis Jackson (1970) and Erskine Hawkins

Erskine Hawkins

Erskine Ramsay Hawkins was an American trumpet player and big band leader from Birmingham, Alabama, dubbed "The 20th Century Gabriel". He is most remembered for composing the jazz standard "Tuxedo Junction" with saxophonist and arranger Bill Johnson...

 (1971).

He recorded two albums with his own big band, the house band at the Apollo Theatre on 125th Street in Harlem in the 1960s and 70s.

Discography (leader)

• 1960: Manhattan...3:00 A.M. (Poplar 1003)
• 1961: Big band at the Apollo (Ascot 16004)

Discography (sideman)

• Andy Kirk
  Andy Kirk
  Andrew Dewey Kirk was a jazz saxophonist and tubist best known as a bandleader of the "Twelve Clouds of Joy," popular during the swing era....
  
  , Live at the Apollo, 1944–47
• Louis Jordan
  Louis Jordan
  Louis Thomas Jordan was a pioneering American jazz, blues and rhythm & blues musician, songwriter and bandleader who enjoyed his greatest popularity from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as "The King of the Jukebox", Jordan was highly popular with both black and white audiences in the...
  
   And his orchestra, 1951
• George Rhodes, Plays Porgy and Bess, 1958
• Willis Jackson
  Willis Jackson
  Willis "Gator" Jackson was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Born in Miami, Florida, Jackson joined Duke Ellington alumnus Cootie Williams's band in 1949 as a teenager, after being discovered by Eddie Vinson. During the 1950s he participated in R&B and jazz recordings, primarily as a session...
  
  , Recording session, 1970
• Erskine Hawkins
  Erskine Hawkins
  Erskine Ramsay Hawkins was an American trumpet player and big band leader from Birmingham, Alabama, dubbed "The 20th Century Gabriel". He is most remembered for composing the jazz standard "Tuxedo Junction" with saxophonist and arranger Bill Johnson...
  
  , Live at Club Soul Sound, 1971

External links