Biography
Born on June 21, 1912, in El Paso, TX, saxophonist and bandleader Jim Wynn spent his formative years in Los Angeles, where the clarinet served as his initial instrument. He later took up the tenor saxophone and launched his professional path alongside Charlie Echols, eventually contributing as a sideman to countless West Coast sessions that featured an extended collaboration with Johnny Otis. Leading his own groups—frequently promoted under the name Big Jim Wynn—he cut occasional sides for roughly a dozen labels between 1945 and 1959, among them 4 Star/Gilt Edge, which released his best-known track, "Ee-Bobaliba," along with Modern, Specialty, Supreme, and Mercury. In later years Wynn moved to baritone sax yet remained active as a sideman through the 1970s until his death in 1977.