Ernie Fields Jr. (July 29, 1934 – March 8, 2024) was an American baritone saxophonist and

session musician A session musician (also known as studio musician or backing musician) is a musician hired to perform in a recording session or a live performance. The term sideman is also used in the case of live performances, such as accompanying a reco ...

. Son of notable musician

Ernie Fields Ernest Lawrence Fields (August 28, 1904 – May 11, 1997)Laprarie, Michael Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture'' (accessed May 14, 2010). was an American trombonist, pianist, arranger and bandleader. He first became known for leadin ...

, he worked with blues, soul and

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African-American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African-Americans in the ...

artists including B. B. King,

Bobby Bland Robert Calvin Bland (born Robert Calvin Brooks; January 27, 1930 – June 23, 2013), known professionally as Bobby "Blue" Bland, was an American blues singer. Bland developed a sound that mixed gospel with the blues and R&B. He was describ ...

Stevie Wonder Stevland Hardaway Morris (; Judkins; born May 13, 1950), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American and Ghanaian singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer. He is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th c ...

Aretha Franklin Aretha Louise Franklin ( ; March 25, 1942 – August 16, 2018) was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. Honored as the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Queen of Soul", she was twice named by ''Rolling Stone'' magazine as the Roll ...

Rick James James Ambrose Johnson Jr. (February 1, 1948 – August 6, 2004), better known by his stage name Rick James, was an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. Born and raised in Buffalo, New York, James began his musical career in his tee ...

, and

Marvin Gaye Marvin Pentz Gaye Jr. (; April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984) was an American Rhythm and blues, R&B and soul singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. He helped shape the sound of Motown in the 1960s, first as an in-house session player an ...

. Fields graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in 1951 and then attended

Howard University Howard University is a private, historically black, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and accredited by the Mid ...

, playing with his father's band during breaks. In the 1990s he began touring with trombonist

Fred Wesley Fred Wesley (born July 4, 1943) is an American trombonist who worked with James Brown in the 1960s and 1970s, and Parliament-Funkadelic in the second half of the 1970s. Biography Wesley was born the son of a high school teacher and big band le ...

, playing

bagpipes Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, N ...

as well as saxophone. Fields wrote the score for the 1978 film '' Disco Godfather''. On the April 6, 2010 episode of ''

American Idol ''American Idol'' is an American Music competition, singing competition television series created by Simon Fuller, produced by Fremantle (company), Fremantle North America and 19 Entertainment, and distributed by Fremantle North America. It a ...

'', Fields played the

didgeridoo The didgeridoo (;()), also spelt didjeridu, among other variants, is a wind instrument, played with vibrating lips to produce a continuous Drone (music), drone while using a special breathing technique called circular breathing. The didgerido ...

during Crystal Bowersox's performance of the Lennon and McCartney composition "

Come Together "Come Together" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. The song is the opening track on the band's 1969 studio album ''Abbey Road''. It was also a double A-side single in the U ...

". Ernie Fields Jr. was music contractor for ''American Idol'', ''The Voice'', and ''X Factor.'' Fields lived in

Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commerci ...

. He died in his sleep on March 8, 2024, at the age of 89.

Discography

* 1978: ''

Here, My Dear ''Here, My Dear'' is the fourteenth studio album by the American soul music, soul singer and songwriter Marvin Gaye, released as a double album on December 15, 1978, on Motown-subsidiary label Tamla Records. allmusic - Here, My Dear overviewRec ...

'' –

* 1978: '' Ride a Wild Horse - Motown Special Disco Version Single'' – Ernie Fields Jr. * 1979: '' Wild and Peaceful'' –

Teena Marie Mary Christine Brockert (March 5, 1956 – December 26, 2010), known professionally as Teena Marie, was an American Soul music, soul and Contemporary R&B, R&B singer, songwriter, and producer. She was known by her childhood nickname Tina before ...

* 1995: ''

Conversation Peace ''Conversation Peace'' is the twenty-second album released by American musician Stevie Wonder, on the Motown label in 1995. The album was Wonder's first full-length non-soundtrack studio album since 1987's '' Characters''. This album yielded th ...

'' –

* 2008: '' One Kind Favor'' – B. B. King

Selected filmography

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fields, Ernie Jr. 1934 births 2024 deaths 21st-century American saxophonists American jazz baritone saxophonists Musicians from Tulsa, Oklahoma