Ernie Watts

Biography

Ernest James Watts (born October 23, 1945) is an American jazz and rhythm and blues saxophonist who plays soprano, alto, and tenor saxophone. He has worked with Charlie Haden's Quartet West and toured with the Rolling Stones. On Frank Zappa's album The Grand Wazoo he played the ''Mystery Horn'', a straight-necked C melody saxophone. He played the notable saxophone riff on ''The One You Love'' by Glenn Frey.

Watts was born in Norfolk, Virginia, and began playing saxophone at thirteen. After a brief period at West Chester University, he attended the Berklee College of Music on a Down Beat magazine scholarship. He toured with Buddy Rich in the late-1960s, occupying one of the alto saxophone chairs. He visited Africa on a U.S. State Department tour with Oliver Nelson's group. For twenty years he played alto saxophone with The Tonight Show Band under Doc Severinsen. He was a featured soloist on many of Marvin Gaye's albums on Motown during the 1970s, as well as on many other pop and R&B sessions during his twenty-five years as a studio musician in Los Angeles. He has won two Grammy Awards as an instrumentalist.

Watts was added to the line-up of backing musicians on the fifth show of the The Rolling Stones American Tour 1981, and toured with them until the end of that tour. Throughout this tour Watts' influence on the live music of the band grew significantly with the Stones jamming longer and longer over tracks as Just My Imagination and Let Me Go. Watts can be heard on Still Life (Rolling Stones album)

In the mid-1980s Watts decided to rededicate himself to jazz. He recorded and toured with German guitarist and composer Torsten de Winkel, drummer Steve Smith, and keyboardist Tom Coster. He was invited to join Charlie Haden's Quartet West. They met backstage one night after Haden heard Watts play ''Nightbird'' by Michel Colombier. Watts played on soundtracks for the movies Grease and The Color Purple and on the theme song for the TV show Night Court.

In 1982, his version of ''Chariots of Fire'' was featured in the Season 4 episode of WKRP in Cincinnati (''The Creation of Venus'') as Andy Travis and Venus Flytrap are playing games in the studio when Momma Carlson walks in and surprises them.

He was featured in one of Windows XP's sample music, ''Highway Blues'' by New Stories. In 1986, he visited South America with the Pat Metheny Special Quartet, alongside Charlie Haden and Paul Wertico, playing at Shams in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

In 2008, his album Analog Man won the Independent Music Award for Best Jazz Album. He played on Kurt Elling's album Dedicated to You, which won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album in 2011. [Wikipedia]