Melvin Sparks

by Alex Henderson Although not a huge name in jazz, Melvin Sparks brought his Grant Green-influenced guitar to quite a few soul-jazz and organ-combo recordings of the late 60s and early 70s. A lover of jazz as well as R&B and blues, the Houston native took up the guitar at 11, and was only 13 when he sat in with B.B. King. In 1963, he joined the Upsetters, an R&B show band that backed Little Richard, Sam Cooke, and other big names. After leaving the Upsetters, Sparks played with Jack McDuff in 1966-1967. The improviser was very much in demand in the late 60s and early 70s, and he was featured on sessions by Charles Earland, Sonny Stitt, Lou Donaldson, Rusty Bryant, Sonny Phillips, Reuben Wilson, and Johnny Hammond Smith, among others. Sparks delivered his first album as leader, Sparks!, for Prestige in 1970, and recorded a few more Prestige dates before providing Melvin Sparks for Westbound in 1975. When soul-jazzs fortunes declined in the mid-70s, the guitarist wasnt working as much. The only album Sparks recorded as a leader in the 80s was 1981s Sparkling on Muse, although he was featured as a sideman on sessions by Houston Person, Hank Crawford, and Jimmy McGriff during that decade. The 1990s saw a lot of renewed interest in soul-jazz, and in 1997, Sparks returned to the studio for his Cannonball date Im a Gittar Player.