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Ike Quebec

“This incontestably superior musician has been almost totally ignored in the chronicling of the musical form to which he has contributed so much. Quebec was a tenor man of the Hawkins school with a big tone and firm, vigorous style. I hope this new perspective of the contribution Ike Quebec has made to jazz will help to bring a little lightness to his soul and much more recognition to his name.” Leonard Feather

An accomplished dancer and pianist, he switched to tenor sax as his primary instrument in his early 20s, and quickly earned a reputation as a promising player. His recording career started in 1940, with the Barons of Rhythm. He recorded or performed with Frankie Newton, Hot Lips Page, Roy Eldridge, Trummy Young, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Carter and Coleman Hawkins. Between 1944 and 1951, he worked with Cab Calloway. He recorded for Blue Note records in this era, and also served as a talent scout for the label (helping pianists Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell come to wider attention) and, due to his exceptional sight reading skills, was an uncredited impromptu arranger for many Blue Note sessions.

Quebec recorded only sporadically during the 1950s, though he still performed regularly. He kept abreast on new developments in jazz, and his later playing incorporated elements of hard bop and soul jazz.

In 1959 he began what amounted to a comeback with a series of albums on the Blue Note label. Blue Note executive Alfred Lion was always fond of Quebec's music, but was unsure how audiences would respond to the saxophonist after a decade of low visibility. In the mid-to-late 1950s, Blue Note issued a series of Quebec singles for the juke box market; audiences responded well, and this was recently reissued as “The Complete Blue Note 45 Sessions.” As strange as it sounds, these cuts are all excellent, as Quebec rose to the occasion and delivered the goods.

He made some reputable recordings in the early ‘60’s as “The Art of Ike Quebec,” “Heavy Soul,” and “It Might as well be Spring.” These were all recorded and released in 1961. These albums led up to his masterpiece for Blue Note, “Blue and Sentimental,” (1961) this collection of ballads offers him plenty of room and the tempo is suited to his heavy rolling sound. Quebec went on to record some more sessions for Blue Note going into 1962.

Quebec's comeback was cut short by his death from lung cancer, in 1963. Source: James Nadal

Ike Quebec: Blue & Sentimental - 1962

by Marc Davis
May 14, 2017

Everyone loves a good comeback--especially if the second act is better than the first. Think of Tina Turner, Marlon Brando and George Foreman. Or tenor saxman Ike Quebec. Quebec isn't exactly a household name, but his seven Blue Note records are uniformly terrific, and Blue & Sentimental is among the best ever produced by the label. That it came after Quebec had already achieved success (if not fame) among the big bands of the 1940s, and ...

Album Review

Ike Quebec: Easy Living

Read "Easy Living" reviewed by Greg Simmons

by Greg Simmons
August 28, 2013

Ike Quebec is one of those funny figures in Blue Note Records' history. By the late fifties, after he'd been out of recording for a number of years, he was too old to really be at the hard-bop vanguard (he was born in 1918) but not old enough to be a senior statesman like Coleman Hawkins or Duke Ellington. Much of his involvement with the record label in those years was as an A&R man, scouting for new talent for ...

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Album Review

Ike Quebec: Blue & Sentimental

Read "Blue & Sentimental" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
April 12, 2008

Ill health and “personal problems" prevented Ike Quebec (1918-63) from becoming the star he could otherwise have been. The tenor saxophonist straddled 1940s swing-to-bop with as much style as his near contemporary, Dexter Gordon. His warm, weighty, approximately out-of-Coleman Hawkins playing was tailor-made for the hard bop era which followed--but he spent most of the 1950s silent, with a gorilla on his back, and his 1959 re-emergence on Blue Note, for whom he'd first recorded in the mid 1940s, was ...

293

Album Review

Ike Quebec: Bossa Nova Soul Samba

Read "Bossa Nova Soul Samba" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
October 4, 2007

This is quite a painful disc to listen to. Not because of the music--which is beautiful--but because of the events surrounding it. Recorded in October 1962, it was to be tenor saxophonist Ike Quebec's final album. Less than four months later he died of lung cancer. This fact rather sticks in the mind like a house guest who has outstayed his or her welcome.

Wistful, pretty and elegiac, the music is somehow a fitting final statement from a ...

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Album Review

Ike Quebec: It Might As Well Be Spring

Read "It Might As Well Be Spring" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
September 1, 2006

A generation older than the tenor saxophone young Turks who helped define Blue Note during its 1955-65 heyday, Ike Quebec's style was fully formed a decade before the innovations of Hank Mobley, Wayne Shorter and Joe Henderson--and his legacy has been consistently overshadowed as a result. But while Quebec may not have been storming any barricades, his sumptuous, blues-drenched, swing-to-bop playing sounds as heartachingly beautiful today as it must have done all those years ago.

Born in 1918 and a ...

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Album Review

Ike Quebec: The Complete Blue Note 45 Sessions

Read "The Complete Blue Note 45 Sessions" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
October 19, 2005

It's hard enough finding any sort of jukebox in a bar these days, and as for one with some jazz on it, you can forget it, at least here in Inglan. But there was a time, in inner city US neighbourhood bars anyway, when both things were commonplace. The last gasp was the early '60s, when hard bop was still kicking and rock and soul had yet to knock it sideways.

The 26 good-time--but, as you'd expect from ...

239

Album Review

Various Artists: Blue Note Connoisseur Series: The Lost Sessions

Read "Blue Note Connoisseur Series: The Lost Sessions" reviewed by C. Andrew Hovan

by C. Andrew Hovan
December 1, 1999

When it came to the music that he put out on record, Blue Note producer Alfred Lion was a stickler for tight ensembles, inspired performances, and musically appealing content. This sometimes meant, added to the sheer prolific nature of the label, that many decent sessions ended up accumulating in the vaults over the years. Of course, Blue Note began mining these resources back in the late '70s and early '80s, carrying on in some degree through the label's resurrection in ...

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