If you trace the sounds of rhythm and blues and rock ‘n’ roll, they will lead to Alvin “Red” Tyler’s saxophone.

“One of the reasons that rock and roll and rhythm and blues sounds the way it did then and does now is because of the way that Tyler played and arranged it,” Music Rising at Tulane states. As a member of the Dave Bartholomew Orchestra, he “was a mainstay of the band that defined what rock ‘n’ roll has sounded like to this very day.”
Tyler was born in 1925 in the 9th Ward. After World War II, he attended the Grunewald School of Music.
“I didn’t start playing music until I got out of the service,” Tyler said in a 1997 interview. “I was a man when I started playing.”
According to “This is My Story (TIMS),” the Dave Bartholomew Orchestra was “the hottest outfit” in New Orleans when Tyler joined in 1949. His first recording with the band was also Fats Domino’s first session, which resulted in Domino’s classic “The Fat Man.”
The orchestra morphed into the J&M Studio Band.
“Tyler played on almost all of the hits that came out of New Orleans,” Music Rising states. “His baritone saxophone and occasional tenor could be heard on hits from Fats Domino, Little Richard… and many others… often he was the de facto arranger and producer.”
Instrumental in the formation of All For One Records with Harold Battiste in 1961, Tyler recorded two jazz albums in the 1980s for Rounder Records. In 1994, he recorded “The Ultimate Session” with Allen Toussaint, Mac Rebennack, Earl Palmer, Lee Allen and Edward Frank.
Tyler, who died April 3, 1998, “is a true hero of New Orleans music,” Music Rising states. His “playing defined the Crescent City sound for five decades.”
For more tales from New Orleans history, visit the Back in the Day archives.