Ernie Krivda, Jazz Performer

2009 LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD IN Music

At the root of Ernie Krivda’s five-decades-and-counting as one of the jazz world’s preeminent tenor saxophone players is the deep passion for the music that he acquired at home. His first recollections of hearing his father Lou play jazz on his tenor sax, clarinet or flute date to when he was 3. As he grew, his father fostered that burgeoning love of jazz by playing his favorite records for his son, and giving him his first clarinet lessons at 6.

By the time he was 13, Krivda was already gigging professionally in polka bars. After several years of cutting his teeth in the Cleveland’s jazz scene flourishing around East 105th Street, Krivda began to play tenor sax with the Jimmy Dorsey Band under Lee Castle. The list of his fellow musicians reads like a Who’s Who of jazz and popular music greats. For example, while playing in the house band at the famous Leo’s Casino he supported such Motown greats as The Temptations, The Supremes, The Four Tops, and Smokey Robinson, and also played on recording sessions for groups such as The Ojays and Terry Knight.

In the 1970’s, while leading the House band at the legendary Smiling Dog Saloon, Krivda played opposite (and often with) the top jazz names of the era and earned a reputation as one of the music’s leading talents and even turned down Miles Davis’ offer to join his band. Instead, he took alto saxophonist great Cannonball Adderly’s advice to join Quincy Jones’ last touring band. In 1976, he moved to New York and signed with Inner City Records. The series of records that followed cemented his position as one of jazz’s most important saxophone players. However, a few years later, Krivda moved back to Cleveland, “where I could be me,” he says.

The accomplishments continued to grow, as he wowed audiences all over the world, from Los Angeles to Vienna, from Carnegie Hall to the Kool Jazz Festival. He has been the subject of features and articles in international publications such as Down Beat and Jazz Times magazines. Additionally, he has won countless Cleveland awards, most recently the prestigious Tri-C Jazz Festival Jazz Legends Award.

Krivda has recorded dozens of jazz disks, mostly as the leader, but also as a sideman, and his performances have garnered him kudos that label him everything from “a tenor-wielding monster” and “master” to “the complete artist and an instantly recognizable stylist.” After one concert at Catalina, one LA reviewer raved that Krivda’s performance “gets under your skin and into your bones, where you feel what it is he is getting at.”

The Jazz Times said of the master sax man’s playing on his most recent release, The Art of the Trio, “Krivda has a unique jazz voice.”

According to Krivda, his favorite performance was a Tribute to Stan Getz concert at Severance Hall in 1998, which was recorded and released as part of a multiple CD set in 2003-2004.

In addition to his trio, Krivda leads The Fat Tuesday Big Band, a Cleveland favorite for its raucous, high-energy jazz concerts. Krivda added teacher to his expansive repertoire when he became a charter member of the Tri C Jazz Studies Faculty.

Of his lifetime of jazz, all of his storied accomplishments and his ongoing vital contributions as a world-class musician, composer, conductor, and teacher, Krivda says: “I grew up with music, and it just seemed that I would realize my life through jazz.”