Big Jay McNeely

Big Jay McNeely ranked among the leading figures who turned the tenor saxophone into rock’s dominant solo voice during its formative years, unleashing blistering cascades of piercing, blaring saxophone lines strong enough to strip wallpaper from the walls. Performing with unrestrained fervor, he generated a scorching R&B whirlwind while assuming every imaginable posture—kneeling, lying flat, or rolling along the pavement on a mechanic’s creeper, evoking a contemporary pied piper.

Cecil McNeely and his older brother Bob, who delivered precisely matched baritone saxophone lines on several of Jay’s most intense instrumentals, came of age in Los Angeles’s Watts district amid a thriving jazz scene along the lively local club strip. Shaped by Illinois Jacquet’s example and guided by Jack McVea, McNeely developed a close association with Johnny Otis, co-owner of the popular Barrelhouse club. Ralph Bass, an associate of Otis, supervised McNeely’s first Savoy Records session in 1948; Savoy chief Herman Lubinsky gave him the name Big Jay, judging it more marketable and stylish than Cecil. McNeely’s relentless single-note blasts on “The Deacon’s Hop” produced an R&B number-one hit for him and the label in 1949, while the follow-up “Wild Wig” likewise scored strongly for the acrobatic young saxophonist.

After Savoy, McNeely recorded for Exclusive beginning in 1949, moved to Imperial for 1950–1951, then to King’s Federal subsidiary from 1952 to 1954—where he cut some of his most extreme sides, among them the startling “3-D”—and finally to Vee-Jay in 1955. His stage shows became legendary. In 1949 he galvanized thousands of fans packed into Los Angeles’s Wrigley Field by carrying his saxophone through the stands before continuing the performance on his back from home plate to first base; another signature flourish involved a fluorescent saxophone that glowed in darkness.

McNeely achieved his final hit in 1958, adopting a markedly calmer approach alongside vocalist Little Sonny Warner. The bluesy “There Is Something on Your Mind” was tracked in Seattle yet issued the following year on Los Angeles disc jockey Hunter Hancock’s Swingin’ label. McNeely’s original became a major success, though New Orleans singer Bobby Marchan’s impassioned version for Fire soon topped the R&B chart. The song has since received innumerable covers, including a notable reading by Conway Twitty.

As honking saxophones lost popularity at the start of the 1960s, McNeely took a job as a mail carrier and embraced religion as a Jehovah’s Witness. His instrument resurfaced in the early 1980s; thereafter he issued recordings on his own small imprint and maintained a steady schedule of performances throughout the United States and abroad. He stayed active well into the twenty-first century, releasing a 2014 collaboration with the group the Engenius and a 2016 album titled Blowin’ Down the House: Big Jay’s Latest & Greatest that combined new material with re-recordings of earlier hits. Big Jay McNeely died in September 2018 at the age of 91.