Alvin'Red' Tyler & The Gyros

Biography

Alvin "Red" Tyler was, by his own account, a jazz musician first — but it's his baritone saxophone on countless New Orleans R&B and rock and roll sessions that secured his legacy. Born and raised in New Orleans, Tyler picked up the horn in the Army before joining Dave Bartholomew's band in 1949; his first studio session was also Fats Domino's first, the one that produced "The Fat Man." Through the 1950s he became the de facto arranger of the J&M studio band, working out horn parts and head arrangements on hits for Little Richard, Earl King, and Huey "Piano" Smith while co-leading the sax section with Lee Allen. His own 1958 album, credited to Alvin 'Red' Tyler and the Gyros, featured a young Allen Toussaint and James Booker. In 1961 Tyler helped Harold Battiste launch AFO Records, one of the first Black-owned record labels in the country. He spent much of the 1970s working a day job as a liquor salesman while still gigging selectively, before producer Scott Billington signed him to Rounder Records in the mid-1980s for two acclaimed straight-ahead jazz albums, Graciously and Heritage. Tyler died in 1998, a year after the city of New Orleans honored him with 'Alvin "Red" Tyler Day.'