Red Young & His Hot Horns

Photo by Greg Giannukos (http://elojophoto.tumblr.com/)

Red Young & His Hot Horns is a project Red has been working on for decades. As a talented pianist, organist, vocalist, accompanist and arranger, growing up in Ft Worth, Texas in the 50s & 60s, Red was exposed to a wide variety of music ??? classical, big band, jazz, blues, gospel and everything in between. The artists that were played on the local radio at that time were Ray Charles, Jimmy Witherspoon, Percy Mayfield, T Bone Walker, Jimmy Reed, Louis Jordan, Nat Cole, Dinah Washington, Etta James, Joe Williams, Big Joe Turner, Wynonie Harris and many others. Before the guitar driven bands defined the blues in the 60s and 70s, the horn and piano sounds permeated the air with their saxophones and brass. The first Ray Charles recordings incorporated this sound ??? 2 trumpets, alto, tenor & baritone saxophone and many at the time used 3 or 4 saxophones. People such as Big Jay McNeely, David ???Fathead??? Newman, Eddie ???Lockjaw??? Davis, Illinois Jacket, Arnett Cobb and many others had what became known as the big Texas Tenor sound. So with a small number of horns, it could sound both big and small at the same time.

Red???s new band incorporates not only this sound, but the large pool of great players around Austin and special guests vocalists as well. After touring the world with many artists, he returned to Austin. His new home is at Antone???s.