Hamiet Bluiett

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Hamiet Bluiett (b. Brooklyn (or Lovejoy), Illinois, September 16, 1940) is an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer. His primary instrument is the baritone saxophone, and he is considered one of the finest living players of this instrument. He also plays (and records with) the bass saxophone, E-flat alto clarinet, E-flat contra-alto clarinet, and wooden flute.

Bluiett was born just north of East St. Louis in Brooklyn, Illinois (also known as Lovejoy), a predominantly African American village which had been founded as a free black community in the 1840s. As a child, he studied piano, trumpet, and clarinet, but was attracted most strongly to the baritone saxophone from the age of ten. He began his musical career by playing the clarinet for barrelhouse dances in Brooklyn, Illinois, before joining the Navy band in 1961.

In his mid-twenties, Bluiett heard Harry Carney (the baritone player in the Duke Ellington band) play in a live concert in Boston, which also made a strong impression on the young Bluiett, providing an example of a baritone saxophonist who played as soloist rather than accompanist.

In an interview with Fred Jung from the Jazz Weekly website, Bluiett explains his interest in the instrument:

FJ: What was it about the baritone that called to you?

HAMIET BLUIETT: Well, I don't know. I didn't even hear it. There was something about it. Like you look at somebody and you like them. I just fell in love with the instrument from the sight of it. That was it. I never forgot that it was a baritone saxophone. I always wanted to play saxophone, but I had never seen anything like a baritone. So when I heard the guy playing it, I wasn't that impressed with what he played. It was the size of the sound because most people who play the baritone don't approach it like the awesome instrument that it is. They approach it as if it is something docile like a servant type instrument. I don't approach it that way. I approach it as if it was a lead voice and not necessarily here to uphold the altos, tenors, and sopranos. I think it can stand toe to toe with you like Shaquille O'Neal and take you out.

Following his time in the Navy, he returned to the St. Louis area in the mid-1960s. In the late 1960s Bluiett co-founded the Black Artists' Group (BAG) of St. Louis, Missouri, a collective dedicated to fostering creative work in theater, visual arts, dance, poetry, film, and music. He led the BAG big band during 1968 and 1969.

Bluiett moved to New York City in the fall of 1969, where he joined the Charles Mingus Quintet and the Sam Rivers large ensemble. In 1976 he co-founded the World Saxophone Quartet (along with two other Black Artists' Group members, Julius Hemphill and Oliver Lake), which soon became jazz music's most renowned saxophone quartet. He has remained a champion of the somewhat unwieldy baritone saxophone, organizing large groups of baritone saxophones. Since the 1990s he has led a virtuosic quartet, the Bluiett Baritone Nation, made up entirely of baritone saxophones, with drum set accompaniment. In the 1980s, he also founded The Clarinet Family, a group of eight clarinetists playing clarinets of various sizes ranging from E-flat soprano to contrabass.

Bluiett has also worked with Sam Rivers, Babatunde Olatunji, Abdullah Ibrahim, Stevie Wonder, and Marvin Gaye.

He returned to his hometown of Brooklyn, Illinois in 2002.

[edit] Recordings

1976 – Endangered Species. India Navigation.
1979 – Im/possible to Keep. India Navigation.
1987 – The Clarinet Family. Black Saint.
1991 – If You Have To Ask...You Don't Need To Know. Tutu.
1996 - Bluiett's Barbecue Band. Mapleshade Productions.
1998 – Bluiett Baritone Saxophone Group. Live at the Knitting Factory. Knitting Factory.
1998 – Bluiett Baritone Nation. Libation for the Baritone Saxophone Nation. Justin Time.