"Is it tight?" 

As he strides into the room of HotHouse every Monday night, you'd hear him say this out loud with his chuckling smile. He brightened room with his colorful character and his soulful sound came through his tenor sax. We all nodded our heads when he told us he had more than twenty children spread all around. He was a charming man. He admits that he didn't treat himself right but he also was very proud of the fact that he could PLAY. Nobody would argue with that. "I just wanna play music, Yoko, that's all." Well, Sonny, you did it. But all of us just wish that you'd hung out with us a little longer and give us another chance to listen to your music and your stories. 

Miss you Sonny.  

 -Yoko

Obituary and biography on Sonny Seals from the Chicago Sun-Times.

Sonny Seals may wander off at times to listen to the ensemble from the wings, but when it's time, he takes the stage, plants his feet with cool, flat-footed rootedness, squares up his shoulders and just blows. Eloquent flights of improvisation, mellow bop, elegant quotes, raucous honks and bursts of defragmented cubist scatting, are followed seamlessly by a powerful and triumphant return to the melody.

It's no surprise to learn that Sonny has appeared on LP behind artists B.B. King, Natalie Cole and Louis Armstrong. He's worked with Little Junior Parker, T-Bone Walker, Tyrone Davis, the Chi-Lites, Jackie Wilson, Smokey Robinson, Barbra Acklin, Peabo Bryson, Gene Ammons, Eddie Lockjaw Davis, Sonny Stitt, Aretha Franklin, Quincy Jones, James Moody and Frank Sinatra, to name only a few.

A practical man, Sonny has also been a professional barber and a Chicago Public School music teacher (having served his student teaching under his bandmate John Watson) but he has always kept a hand -- and horn -- in the music.

"I covered a lot of different territories," says the soft-spoken and friendly tenor player with typical understatement, "I've worked country clubs, weddings, bar mitzvahs, whatever...My kids are grown now, so I want to try to play again."

Try to play? Listen to his sublime film noir bop on Snow Country, check out his explanation of John's mood on Rocks in My Bed, and bask in the masterful meetings of tonal control and playful melodic interpretation in his solos on Cherry and I Want a Little Girl. We're so glad he's trying.

"We've got something unique. It's very lovely. I'm not one to sit down and analyze everything. All I can say is, if you hear it and you like it, that's what it is."