Biography
William Sebastien Lewis was born on 1 November 1914 in Middleburg, North Carolina, and died on 9 July 1994. Known professionally as Sabby Lewis, the pianist first entered the jazz scene during the early 1930s while working in Boston, Massachusetts, where he formed his own band by 1936. Throughout the balance of his career he remained largely rooted in Boston, though both his small groups and big bands commanded strong respect from fellow musicians. Visiting leaders such as Woody Herman, Benny Goodman and Stan Kenton regularly joined him onstage at local clubs like the Savoy Cafe whenever their schedules brought them to town. Lewis’s ensembles also served as an early training ground for several musicians who later achieved major success, among them saxophonists Paul Gonsalves and Sonny Stitt, trumpeters Cat Anderson, Joe Gordon and Freddie Webster, and drummers Alan Dawson, Jimmy Crawford and Roy Haynes. Although he scored a hit with the recording ‘Bottoms Up’, an adaptation of Illinois Jacquet’s treatment of ‘Flying Home’, Lewis never sought or reached national prominence and appeared content to remain outside it. He continued directing a big band well into the 1950s before shifting to smaller groups that he led until the late 1970s.