Paul Gonsalves

This is a very nice website dedicated to Paul Gonsalves: http://www.paulgonsalves.com/bio.html

Quote

"Paul Gonsalves was a premier sideman for the Duke Ellington Orchestra from 1950 until his death in 1974, ten days prior to Ellington's passing. He was a driving, powerful soloist featured on numerous swing numbers, a style that reached its height during his historic solo bridging the two movements of the Ellington Orchestra's performance of “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue” at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1956. However, Gonsalves is also well remembered by fellow musicians and followers of the Ellington Orchestra for creative and highly personal renditions of Ellington/Strayhorn ballads such as “Chelsea Bridge”, “Happy Reunion”, and “In a Sentimental Mood”, as well as standards like “Star Dust”, “Body and Soul”, “Don't Blame Me”, and “Days of Wine and Roses”."

I put together a Qobuz playlist of some of the "highlights" mentioned on that site, with a few of my own additions: https://open.qobuz.com/playlist/10246872

There is a wonderful video of Gonsalves performing "Happy Reunion" with Ellington at the University of Wisconsin, in 1972. I believe the video used to be available on YouTube but seems to have been taken down. The full film of Ellington's week at Wisconsin is available here: https://ellington.se/ellington-meetings/ellington-2022/presentations/ellington-at-uwis-july-1972/   

Happy Reunion starts at 59:00.