Alvin Batiste

Few musicians are more deserving of honors than Alvin Batiste. As an instrumentalist, a composer and an educator, he has been a central figure in shaping modern music for the past half century, and the ten tracks on Alvin Batiste provide a too-rare glimpse of a giant who has spent far too much of his career out of the limelight. Batiste was born in New Orleans in 1932, and is among the rare artists who have created a modern approach to improvising on the clarinet.