Despite his command of the alto saxophone, Earl Bostic never earned the full regard of jazz listeners, owing largely to the string of uncomplicated yet popular R&B and jump-blues successes he cut during his peak years in the 1950s. Eugene Earl Bostic came into the world in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on April 25, 1913. He worked the Midwest circuit through the first half of the 1930s, enrolled at Xavier University, and traveled with multiple outfits before settling in New York in 1938. There his employers ranged from Don Redman to Edgar Hayes to Lionel Hampton, the last of whom featured him on his first recording date in 1939. Arranging assignments and sideman dates filled the early 1940s until, in 1945, he began fronting a steady large ensemble of his own. The following year he trimmed the group to a septet, launched a regular recording schedule, and scored his breakthrough success with the 1948 single “Temptation.” The bulk of his major jukebox recordings appeared on the King label, driven by a heavy, insistent R&B beat and an alto timbre that could shift from silky romanticism to biting blues attack. In 1951 he topped the R&B charts with “Flamingo” and added another Top Ten entry, “Sleep.” Additional hits soon followed in the form of “You Go to My Head” and “Cherokee.” His bands served as proving grounds for a host of rising jazz players that included John Coltrane, Blue Mitchell, Stanley Turrentine, Benny Golson, and Jaki Byard. A heart attack in the late 1950s removed him from music for two years. He resumed live work in 1959, though he recorded less frequently; the sessions he did make in the 1960s leaned toward soul-jazz rather than his earlier proto-R&B approach. On October 28, 1965, Bostic suffered a fatal heart attack while performing at a hotel in Rochester, New York.
