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Alvin Owens “Red” Tyler was born on December 5, 1925 and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was known as “Red” because of his light tanned skin.He grew up listening to the city’s marching bands but didn’t begin playing saxophone until after he joined the US Navy in 1945. After his discharge he joined the Grunewald School of Music and by 1949 he started his career by joining the Dave Bartholomew’s R&B band, whose other members included Ernest McLean, Frank Fields, and Earl Palmer.

Red made his recording debut on Fats Domino’s first session at Cosimo Matassa’s studio, when he recorded The Fat Man. He went on to play on recording sessions for Little Richard, Lloyd Price, Aaron Neville, Lee Dorsey, and numerous other rhythm and blues artists, often helping with the songs’ arrangements. In 1955, he began working for Johnny Vincent’s Ace Records as an A&R man, overseeing sessions by Huey “Piano” Smith, Frankie Ford and others. He also recorded an album, Rockin’ and Rollin’, credited to Alvin ‘Red’ Tyler and the Gyros, with a band that included Fields, Allen Toussaint, and James Booker.

Leaving Ace in 1961, Tyler helped Harold Battiste found his AFO (All For One) record label, which had a hit with Barbara George’s I Know in 1962. He then moved to California where he recorded with Sam Cooke, Larry Williams and others, before returning to New Orleans in the mid-1960s. He co-owned Parlo Records, which found success in 1967 with Aaron Neville’s Tell It Like It Is. He is listed as one of three songwriters of the instrumental, Java, originally recorded by Allen Toussaint. Covered by New Orleans trumpet player Al Hirt, it eventually reached the charts in 1964 and peaked at #4.

Though he primarily played R&B during th early part of his career, during this period Red also played jazz in club jam sessions and regarded himself as primarily a jazz musician. From the mid-1960s Red worked as a liquor salesman and began leading his own jazz band, the Gentlemen Of Jazz, in clubs and hotel residencies in New Orleans, and played with other jazz musicians including Ellis Marsalis.

The baritone saxophone had been his primary instrument during his years as a studio musician, but his jazz playing gradually came to rely on the tenor saxophone. He recorded two jazz albums, Graciously and Heritage In the mid-1980s, with vocals by Johnny Adams and Germaine Bazzle, on the Rounder Records label. In 1994, he recorded the album The Ultimate Session with Toussaint, Earl Palmer, Mac Rebennack, and other New Orleans musicians.

Red Tyler passed away at age 72 in New Orleans on April 3, 1998. After his death, the New Orleans Jazz Festival organised a concert in his honor, featuring many New Orleans leading musicians.

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