Earl Bostic – "Flamingo" (1951)

“The first record that I fell in love with was a thing called ‘Flamingo’ by a saxophone player called Earl Bostic,” the late Charlie Watts told a BBC interviewer in 2011.

Bostic was born in 1913 in Tulsa.  He attended Xavier University in New Orleans, then moved to New York City and achieved great success as a jazz performer, songwriter, and arranger. 

Many of Bostic’s contemporaries thought he was technically superior to any other alto saxophonist of his era – including Charlie “Bird” Parker and John Coltrane.

In 2011, fellow saxophonist Lou Donaldson told an interviewer that Bostic was the greatest saxophone player he ever heard:

[T]he man could play three octaves. I mean play ’em, I don’t mean just hit the notes.  He was bad.  He was a technician you wouldn’t believe. . . . [One night] Bostic was down at Minton’s [Playhouse, the famous jazz club in Harlem] and Charlie Parker came in there. They played “Sweet Georgia Brown” or something and he gave Charlie Parker a saxophone lesson. 

Legendary jazz drummer Art Blakely concurred in Donaldson’s judgment:

Nobody knew more about the saxophone than Bostic, I mean technically, and that includes Bird [Parker].  Working with Bostic was like attending a university of the saxophone.  When [John] Coltrane played with Bostic, I know he learned a lot.

Bostic’s records don’t fully capture his virtuosity.  He wanted badly to be a commercial success, and changed his style in order to appeal to a wider audience.  

“Flamingo” was a #1 R&B hit for Bostic in 1951.  Like many of his best-selling records, “Flamingo” has a heavy backbeat and is very danceable.  Bostic’s playing is raspy and bluesy – the record wouldn’t have sounded out of place at a burlesque joint. 

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Click here to listen to Earl Bostic’s “Flamingo.”

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