Ronnie Ross

About

From Wikipedia:

Albert Ronald Ross (2 October 1933 – 12 December 1991) was a British jazz baritone saxophonist.

Born in Calcutta, India, to Scottish parents, Ross moved to England in 1946 and was educated at the Perse School in Cambridge. He began playing tenor saxophone in the 1950s with Tony Kinsey, Ted Heath, and Don Rendell. During his tenure with Rendell, he switched to baritone saxophone. He played at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958, and formed a group called the Jazz Makers with drummer Allan Ganley that same year. He toured the United States in 1959 and Europe later that year with the Modern Jazz Quartet. From 1961 to 1965 he played with Bill Le Sage, and later with Woody Herman, John Dankworth, Friedrich Gulda, and Clark Terry.

Ross was a saxophone tutor for a young David Bowie, played baritone saxophone on The Beatles’ White Album track, “Savoy Truffle“, and years later was the baritone sax soloist on the Lou Reed song “Walk on the Wild Side”, which was co-produced by Bowie. He also had guest appearances as a soloist on several Matt Bianco albums. The 2004 Matt Bianco album, Matt’s Mood, contains three songs composed by band member Danny White, that were drawn from demos he and Ross recorded together — including the tribute song “Ronnie’s Samba”. […]

In 1967, Ronnie Ross played saxophone on Donovan’s “Mellow Yellow” (Paul McCartney contributed some handclaps to the song). In October 1968, he played saxophone on The Beatles’ “Savoy Truffle“, along with five other horn players.

The session men were playing really well – there’s nothing like a good brass section letting rip – and it sounded fantastic. But having got this really nice sound George turned to Ken Scott and said ‘Right, I want to distort it’. So I had to plug-up two high-gain amplifiers which overloaded and deliberately introduced a lot of distortion, completely tearing the sound to pieces and making it dirty. The musicians came up to the control room to listen to a playback and George said to them ‘Before you listen I’ve got to apologise for what I’ve done to your beautiful sound. Please forgive me – but it’s the way I want it!’ I don’t think they particularly enjoyed hearing their magnificent sound screwed up quite so much but they realised that this was what George wanted, and that it was their job to provide it.

Brian Gibson, technical engineer – From “The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions”, Mark Lewisohn

Last updated on September 2, 2021