Born in West Virginia, saxophonist Marion Meadows grew up in Stamford, CT, where he began playing clarinet and studying classical music at age 8. He naturally gravitated to the soprano sax in his high school years, and his passion for various types of music led him to appreciate numerous jazz musicians, including Stanley Turrentine, Sidney Bichet, Johnny Hodges, Duke Ellington and Coleman Hawkins. ÓAfter studying jazz with Anthony Truglia, Meadows attended Berklee College of Music, where he majored in arranging and composition. He later went to the SUNY Purchase School for the Arts. ÒI got a lot of sideman jobs in college, and I have always said I got a graduate degree playing clubs,Ó says Meadows, who perfected his craft studying with Joe Henderson, Dave Liebman and Eddie Daniels. ÒNot long after I finished school, (drummer) Norman Connors recorded my song 'Invitation' and then asked me to join his band. I later produced his Passion album with him. Things just fell into place.ÓMeadows first hit the airwaves in 1991 with For Lovers Only, but his career really began one day in the late '80s at New York's Grand Central Station. He had been a sideman with Connors for three years, with only vague notions of eventually going solo. One day, while waiting for a train, he pulled out his horn and began playing under the huge dome. His sweet sound caught the attention of fellow traveler and TV composer Jay Chattaway, who was so impressed that he hooked Meadows up with legendary keyboardist Bob James. James signed Meadows to a deal with his TappanZee label, and though Meadows' first recording went unreleased, the experience put him on the road to his eventual success.Meadows hooked up with numerous artists and musicians and became a well known sideman in his own right, recording or performing over the years with Brook Benton, Eartha Kitt, Phyllis Hyman, Jean Carne, The Temptations, Michael Bolton, Angela Bofill, Will Downing and Native American flute player Douglas Spotted Eagle, among many others. In the late '80s, Meadows stretched his usual pop/jazz boundaries as a member of a New York avant-garde band called the Aboriginal Music Society. The '90s marked the beginning of his solo career when he signed with RCA on the strength of his unreleased first album. He became a staple of the smooth jazz format with his subsequent recordings, which include For Lover's Only (1991), Keep It Right Here (1993), Body Rhythm (1994) and Forbidden Fruit (1996), Passion (1997), Another Side Of Midnight (1999), Next To You (2000), In Deep (2002), Players Club (2004), Dressed To Chill (2006), Secrets (2009) and Whisper (2013) his current release.
