Gerard Badini

While countless long-vanished European imprints leave scant traces, this French reed specialist may well have contributed to roughly 150 jazz dates from the close of the 1940s onward. Such a tally is hardly modest—fittingly so for Badini. Few details more firmly place him among distinguished European players than the following résumé: self-taught on both clarinet and tenor saxophone, Gerard Badini made his first professional appearance in 1952 at the Monte Carlo Sporting Club. Classical vocal studies had come first; he took up the clarinet two years earlier. Amid the whir of roulette wheels and the high-stakes losses of continental society, he refined his approach inside several traditional jazz ensembles. A continent-wide tour with Sidney Bechet brought wider exposure at the Salle Pleyal in his hometown of Paris and at Festival Hall in London—an engagement that also placed him in the shadow of a larger figure.

By the close of the 1950s Badini had moved to tenor saxophone and formed working ties with pianist Claude Bolling, drummer Gerard Pochonet, and alto saxophonist Michel Attenoux. Straight-ahead swing remains his natural domain; he is, at heart, a Benny Goodman disciple, yet he delivers assured, consistently exploratory solos inside those familiar limits on both tenor and clarinet. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s he led his own small groups, among them Swing Machine, while also accompanying visiting Americans such as vocalist Helen Humes and assorted former members of Duke Ellington’s orchestra. A recording with trombonist Sam Woodyard stands among his strongest statements. Several years spent in New York during the late 1970s ended with a return to France in 1982. The Super Swing Machine appeared in 1984. In the following decade the slightly more modest Gerard Badini Big Band emerged; under joint direction with Michel Leeb the ensemble issued the 1996 tribute album Djangos d’Or, which featured tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin and vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater.