Born in Chicago, Illinois, Ammons studied music with instructor Walter Dyett at DuSable High School. Ammons began to gain recognition while still at high school when in 1943, at the age of 18, he went on the road with trumpeter King Kolax's band. In 1944 he joined the band of Billy Eckstine (who bestowed on him the nickname "Jug" when straw hats ordered for the band did not fit), playing alongside Charlie Parker and later Dexter Gordon. Notable performances from this period include "Blowin' the Blues Away," featuring a saxophone duel between Ammons and Gordon. After 1947, when Eckstine became a solo performer, Ammons then led a group, including Miles Davis and Sonny Stitt, that performed at Chicago's Jumptown Club. In 1949 Ammons replaced Stan Getz as a member of Woody Herman's Second Herd, and then in 1950 formed a duet with Sonny Stitt.
The 1950s were a prolific period for Ammons and produced some acclaimed recordings such as "The Happy Blues" (1955), featuring Freddie Redd and Lou Donaldson. Musicians who played in his groups, apart from Stitt, included Donald Byrd, Jackie McLean, John Coltrane, Kenny Burrell, Mal Waldron, Art Farmer, and Duke Jordan.
His later career was interrupted by two prison sentences for narcotics possession, the first from 1958 to 1960, the second from 1962 to 1969. He recorded as a leader for Mercury (1947-1949), Aristocrat (1948-1950), Chess (1950-1951), Prestige (1950-1952), Decca (1952), and United (1952-1953). For the rest of his career, he was affiliated with Prestige. After his release from prison in 1969, having served a seven-year sentence at Joliet penitentiary, he signed the largest contract ever offered at that time by Prestige's Bob Weinstock.
Ammons died in Chicago in 1974, at the age of 49, from cancer.
Ammons and Von Freeman were the founders of the Chicago school of tenor saxophone. Ammons's style of playing showed influences from Lester Young as well as Ben Webster. These artists had helped develop the sound of the tenor saxophone to higher levels of expressiveness. Ammons, together with Dexter Gordon and Sonny Stitt, helped integrate their developments with the emerging "vernacular" of the bebop movement, and the chromaticism and rhythmic variety of Charlie Parker is evident in his playing.
While adept at the technical aspects of bebop, in particular its love of harmonic substitutions, Ammons more than Young, Webster or Parker, stayed in touch with the commercial blues and R&B of his day. For example, in 1950 the saxophonist's recording of "My Foolish Heart" made Billboard Magazine's black pop charts. The soul jazz movement of the mid-1960s, often using the combination of tenor saxophone and Hammond B3 electric organ, counts him as a founder. With a thicker, warmer tone than Stitt or Gordon, Ammons could at will exploit a vast range of textures on the instrument, vocalizing it in ways that look forward to later artists like Stanley Turrentine, Houston Person, and even Archie Shepp. Ammons showed little interest, however, in the modal jazz of John Coltrane, Joe Henderson or Wayne Shorter that was emerging at the same time.
Some fine ballad performances in his oeuvre are testament to an exceptional sense of intonation and melodic symmetry, powerful lyrical expressiveness, and mastery both of the blues and the bebop vernacular that can now be described as, in its own way, "classical."
King Pleasure recorded his vocalese take on Ammons' composition "Hittin' the Jug" under the title "Swan Blues".
"Answer Me, My Love" written by Fred Rauch, Carl Sigman and Gerhard Winkler, performed by Gene Ammons, is featured on the soundtrack for Romance & Cigarettes (2005).
He played on a Bb Conn 10M tenor saxophone with a Brilhart Ebolin mouthpiece.
Ammons is considered a major influence on the style of popular jazz tenor saxophonist Joshua Redman a.o..
Didn't We
Gene Ammons Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Didn't we?
This time we almost made some sense of it
Didn't we?
This time I had the answer, right here in my hand
Then I touched it and it had turned to sand
This time we almost sang our song in tune
This time we almost made it, made it to the moon
Didn't we, love?
This time we almost made our poem rhyme
This time we almost made that long hard climb
Didn't we almost make it?
Didn't we almost make it?
Didn't we almost make it this time?
The lyrics of Gene Ammons's song "Didn't We" speak of almost achieving something that cannot be achieved. The song is written in the past tense and expresses the singer's feelings about an event that has already happened. The lyrics are repeated several times throughout the song, emphasizing the point that they almost achieved something that they failed to.
The opening lines of the song, "This time we almost made the pieces fit, Didn't we? This time we almost made some sense of it, Didn't we?" refer to trying to make things right or figure things out. The singer thinks that they almost had the answer but when they touched it, everything turned into sand, which implies that even if they did have the answer, it wouldn't have made a difference.
The chorus holds a central message of the song as it speaks about love and the things they thought they could achieve with it. "This time we almost sang our song in tune, Didn't we, love? This time we almost made it, made it to the moon, Didn't we, love? This time we almost made our poem rhyme, This time we almost made that long hard climb" all highlight the same message of almost achieving but failing. The repeated use of the word 'almost' creates a sense of despair as they have come so close and yet, all their efforts have gone to waste.
In conclusion, the song "Didn't We" by Gene Ammons conveys a message of unfulfilled promises and could-have-beens. The song speaks to the listener on a deeper philosophical level and teaches that hopes and desires are not always met, and though we may almost achieve them, it does not always mean that they were meant to be.
Line by Line Meaning
This time we almost made the pieces fit
We were close to putting everything together perfectly, weren't we?
Didn't we?
Did we not almost make everything fall into place?
This time we almost made some sense of it
We were close to understanding things fully, weren't we?
This time I had the answer, right here in my hand
I thought I finally had the solution in my grasp this time
Then I touched it and it had turned to sand
But then it slipped away and it was like I never had it to begin with
This time we almost sang our song in tune
We were close to harmonizing our voices and music, weren't we, my love?
This time we almost made it, made it to the moon
We were so close to achieving our ultimate goal, weren't we, my love?
This time we almost made our poem rhyme
We almost got the words to flow together seamlessly, didn't we?
This time we almost made that long hard climb
We were almost able to push through and conquer our challenges, weren't we?
Didn't we almost make it?
Were we not on the verge of success?
Didn't we almost make it?
Were we not so close to achieving what we worked so hard for?
Didn't we almost make it this time?
Were we not on the cusp of victory this time around?
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: Jimmy L Webb
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind