Curtis Amy

Curtis Amy specialized in soul-jazz and hard bop as a tenor and soprano saxophonist, maintaining an active career through the 1960s before vanishing from public view. His playing featured a robust tone and an appealing, lightly swinging approach, even if his improvisations lacked exceptional depth. As a youngster he took up the clarinet, later switching to tenor during military service in an Army ensemble. He pursued studies in music education at Kentucky State College, completing his bachelor’s degree in the early 1950s. Following several years of school teaching in Tennessee and club work across the Midwest, he relocated to Los Angeles in the mid-1950s. A 1955 session with Dizzy Gillespie preceded early-1960s engagements alongside Onzy Matthews and Roy Ayers; he also performed and recorded with Gerald Wilson in both 1965 and 1966. Throughout the decade Amy directed groups that included Bobby Hutcherson, Victor Feldman, Jimmy Owens, Kenny Barron, and Ayers, cutting sides for Pacific Jazz and Verve.