A Sax Man Plays an Encore in the Key of D.C.

"You had to learn jazz in the streets," recalls Wess, speaking from Japan during a recent tour. "If you played it in the conservatory, they'd throw you out."

Wess and Taylor were still in high school when they met Jelly Roll Morton, the self-described inventor of jazz who was nearing the end of his life but still holding court at a U Street locale called the Jungle Inn.

Once, when Taylor and several other young pianists stopped in, Morton took it as a personal challenge and pulled out some of his finger-busting pieces from the glory days of Storyville in old New Orleans.

"You punks can't play this," he said.

"Sure enough," Taylor recalls, "we couldn't."

Taylor left for New York in 1942, but Wess was based in Washington until the mid-1950s. He went on the road with pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines and, at only 20, became the leader of a 17-piece Army band that was in Africa for more than a year during World War II.

After the war, he joined Eckstine's band, which was the proving ground for such jazz giants as Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Art Blakey, Fats Navarro and Sarah Vaughan.

"Everybody knew that band was special," Wess says.

By the late 1940s, he was back in Washington, studying flute with the National Symphony's Wallace Mann. When Wess joined Count Basie in 1953, he "gave a new instrumental sound not just to the band to the whole of jazz," according to critic Will Friedwald.

Wess became a key figure in Basie's "New Testament" band of the 1950s as a soloist, composer and arranger, and recruited several other musicians for the band, including trumpeter Thad Jones, trombonist Bill Hughes and bassist Eddie Jones. He and fellow tenor saxophonist Frank Foster became known as the "Two Franks" and developed a friendly rivalry with their hot and cool styles. (Wess was always the one who played it cool.)

His casually swinging solo on Freddie Green's "Corner Pocket," recorded in 1955 for the classic "April in Paris" album, remains one of the finest performances in the Basie canon.

After leaving Basie in 1964, Wess led his own groups and worked in New York studios, including in the TV bands of the Dick Cavett and David Frost talk shows. (Taylor led the Frost band.)

In the 1980s and 1990s, Wess led a Basie-style big band and recorded many well-received albums. More recently, he's recorded memorable albums with pianists Hank Jones and Bill Charlap and has finally begun to receive some long-overdue recognition, particularly with a 2007 American Jazz Masters Fellowship from National Endowment for the Arts.

Now, with those musical adventures behind him, Frank Wess is coming back to where it all began for him and Taylor, more than 70 years ago.

"We played together then," Wess says. "We've played together ever since."