March 28, 2024

If you have never heard Tina Brooks, check him out. A saxophonist who should have been synonymous with names like Joe Henderson, Stanely Turrentine, etc.

Here is his story:

He was 28 when he made the record, and you might have thought, if you didn’t know better, that he was well on his way to an influential career in the jazz forefront. Then comes the sobering thought— when Tina Brooks recorded The Waiting Game in 1961, his career was effectively finished. The record date fell five days before his 29th birthday, but he never recorded again. He would live 13 more years, but neither The Waiting Game nor any of the other music of his mature years was released in his lifetime. He died at 42, a bitter, penniless, incapacitated wreck, but he was he was given up for dead years before that.

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