Ron Holloway

Ronald Edward Holloway (born August 24, 1953) is an American tenor saxophonist.

He is listed in the Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz where veteran jazz critic Ira Gitler described Holloway as a "Hard bear-down-hard-bopper who can blow authentic R&B and croon a ballad with warm, blue feeling."

Holloway is the recipient of 42 Washington Area Music Awards, or Wammies, two of which he received as musician of the year.

He has been a member of the Warren Haynes Band, Susan Tedeschi, Dizzy Gillespie, Gil Scott-Heron and Root Boy Slim.

As the Washington D.C. music scene continued to thrive in the 1970s, Holloway joined popular R&B groups the Sounds of Shea and Mad Dog and the Lowlifers.

In 1974, Holloway went to see Freddie Hubbard in concert and brought an audio cassette tape he'd made while rehearsing to one of Hubbard's recordings.

During the intermission he introduced himself and played the tape for Hubbard.

After hearing the tape, Hubbard invited Holloway to come back and play with him that Sunday night.

He did so and at the end of the performance Hubbard extended an open invitation to sit in with him whenever Hubbard was in town.

The next year, Sonny Rollins conducted a clinic at Howard University.

Backed by a rhythm section composed of local musicians, Rollins invited the young horn players onstage.

Holloway joined him on Rollins's "Playin' in the Yard".

After his solo, Holloway received a standing ovation from the audience.

Rollins and Holloway remained in touch afterwards, becoming good friends.

The friendship and respect between the two ran both ways.

Rollins has been equally generous in his praise of Holloway over the years and has mentioned him in several interviews as one of his favorite young tenor players.

Holloway admired Rollins' "....sense of organic construction, ambidextrous timing, humorous quotes, supreme swagger, infectious personality, individual choice of notes, note displacement, keen sense of drama, staccato punctuations followed by virtuosic runs, worrying a single note, a very personal tonal texture, unique use of smeared notes and more."

In the summer of 1977 a new club opened and the performers included Rollins, Hubbard and Dizzy Gillespie.

Holloway approached Gillespie's dressing room and as he had done with Rollins, brought a tape with him- this time of his performance with Rollins.

After Gillespie listened to the tape, he asked Holloway if he had brought his horn, to which Holloway confessed he hadn't because he was concerned about appearing presumptuous.

Holloway found himself performing with Gillespie all week.

Afterwards, he had a standing invitation to sit in with the band.

Holloway was a member of several Root Boy configurations from 1977 to 1987.

Holloway's tenure with Root Boy Slim overlapped with two other groups.

The first was a local funk band called Osiris.

In 1979 Holloway sat in with Dizzy Gillespie at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London, England.

In 1979 Root Boy, Holloway and the rest of the Sex Change Band participated in a film entitled Mr. Mike's Mondo Video which was written by Michael O'Donoghue of Saturday Night Live.

Mondo Video was not broadcast as NBC deemed it "sick" while Spin later referred to it as "A TV pilot too dangerous to air."

Holloway continued to sit in with Gillespie well into the 1980s.

In the early 1980s, Root Boy and Holloway made cameo appearances in a film made by the D.C. area comedy group known as The Langley Punks, for their Travesty Films group.

Holloway recorded four albums with Root Boy and at least three 45's: "Too Much Jawbone" with "Xmas at K-Mart" on the flip side, "The Meltdown" backed with "Graveyard of Losers" and "Dare to Be Fat" on I.R.S. Records.

On June 6, 1987, he performed with a large group of musicians honoring Gillespie at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts.

Since 2014, Ron Holloway has led his own band; The Ron Holloway Band.

Ron Holloway was born to Winston and Marjorie Holloway, avid jazz fans who met while attending Howard University in Washington, D.C. Holloway recalls his father adding to his collection of Prestige and Blue Note jazz albums.

Holloway's parents, while not musicians, provided a nurturing musical environment for their son.

Holloway's father favored the saxophone and trumpet-led albums and particularly enjoyed great horn soloists.

R&B-influenced Willis Gator Jackson was easiest to grasp at first, but soon he identified the sounds of Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, and Miles Davis as his principal influences.

After high school graduation, Holloway practiced 8–12 hours a day and sat in with bands of kinds in jam sessions, which increased his versatility.

He became familiar with many genres.

In the same week he would often perform with groups in jazz, R&B, funk, rock, jazz fusion, blues, country, and folk.