06 T.J. Fowler - Take Off

T.J. Fowler - Take Off 2:47 (1390-5)

T.J. Fowler, piano with;
Dezie McCullers, trumpet; Frank Taylor, alto sax; Walter Cox, tenor sax; Eugene Taylor, bass; Floyd "Bubbles" McVay, drums. November 10, 1953

Pianist T.J. Fowler had one of the best black bands in the Motor City for many years. His principal competition came from Todd Rhodes and Paul Williams. This band’s rhythm section was solid and the soloists inventive. Fowler, Walter Cox, and Dezie McCullers get a chance to shine on "Take Off".


T. J. Fowler (September 18, 1910, Columbus, Georgia, United States – May 22, 1982, Ecorse, Michigan) was an American jazz and jump blues musician, chiefly active in the Detroit musical scene.

Fowler and his family moved to Detroit, Michigan, when he was six years old, where he learned to play piano. After attending the Detroit Conservatory of Music, he played as the house pianist in his father's pool hall; he also worked at the Ford River Rouge Complex for a time. He worked early in the 1940s in the bands of saxophonist Guy Walters and trumpeter Clarence Dorsey and, in 1947, put together his own ensemble, playing behind Paul "Hucklebuck" Williams on recordings for Savoy Records.

In 1948, he began recording as a leader, first with local labels Paradise and Sensation, then with Savoy himself and then States Records. Among his sidemen were Walter Cox (1948-1958), Lee Gross (1948-1953), and Calvin Frazier. Vocalists who worked with the ensemble included Freddie Johnson, Alberta Adams, Floyd McVay, and Varetta Dillard. He accompanied T-Bone Walker in the mid-1950s. The group was active in Michigan through the end of the 1950s, by which time Fowler had switched to electronic organ as his primary instrument. He ran his own short-lived label, Bow Records, in the late 1950s; in 1959, he was hired by Berry Gordy to work for the nascent Motown Records as an advisor. Later in life he left music to run a landscaping business in Detroit.