Sam Butera

Sam Butera spent much of his career leading Louis Prima's band, but he continued in music long after Prima's death, and became familiar with sounds and styles far beyond Prima's brand of New Orleans jazz. A rock, R&B, and jazz legend, Butera is a towering crossover figure at the saxophone and as a bandleader. He was born in New Orleans to Italian-American parents. His father Joseph owned a butcher shop in a Black section of the city, and played the guitar and the concertina in his spare time. At a wedding he was taken to at age seven, Sam Butera first saw and heard a saxophon...