Happy birthday to Ernie Watts, 81 today — quite possibly the most-heard saxophonist most listeners have never named. If you have ever watched late-night television, heard a Marvin Gaye record, or caught the Night Court theme, you know his sound. Putting a name to it is long overdue.
Watts was born in Norfolk, Virginia, on October 23, 1945, and took up the saxophone at thirteen. A DownBeat scholarship carried him to Berklee, and by 1966 he was holding an alto chair in Buddy Rich’s big band. Los Angeles came next, and with it the seat that made him a fixture of American living rooms: twenty years in The Tonight Show Band under Doc Severinsen. Around the television work he became one of the most in-demand session players in the business — a featured soloist on Marvin Gaye’s Motown classics and a credit on more than 500 recordings, from Cannonball Adderley and Quincy Jones to Steely Dan and Paul McCartney.
Then, in 1981, the Rolling Stones called. Watts joined their American tour at the fifth show and stayed to the end of it, his role growing night by night; you can hear him solo on the live album Still Life. A few years later came the band that finally put his name in front of his sound: Charlie Haden’s Quartet West, the tenor-driven love letter to 1940s Los Angeles that Watts joined as a charter member and played in for decades.
Under his own name he is a two-time Grammy winner with 26 albums as a leader. Since 2004 he and his wife Patricia have run their own label, Flying Dolphin Records, and the Ernie Watts Quartet still tours the world — he marked his 80th birthday on stage at the University of Wyoming last October. Start with “Joyous Reunion” from Unity and you will hear why everybody called him first.
Which Ernie era is yours — the studio years, Quartet West, or the Stones tour?