Illinois Jacquet, jazz great who built bridge to rock; 81

Illinois Jacquet, whose incendiary sound on the tenor saxophone powered one of the most famous solos in jazz history, on Lionel Hampton's 1942 recording of ''Flying Home," died yesterday in New York of heart failure. He was 81.

Mr. Jacquet's full-sized tone and exuberant playing spawned countless imitators. His ''honking" (repeating a particular note so that it sounds like a honk) and use of the saxophone's top-most register injected a raucousness into jazz that prefigured rhythm & blues and rock 'n' roll.

It's even been suggested that Mr. Jacquet's ''Blues, Part 2" is the first rock recording. It was taken from his first performance with Jazz at the Philharmonic, a touring ensemble of jazz stars, in 1944. Mr. Jacquet's marathon JatP solos during the 1940s and 1950s, with their brawling energy and ferocious drive, are a bridge that connects pre-rock and post-rock popular music. Contemporary critics dismissed them as self-indulgent and excessive. Audiences loved them.

Having helped point the way beyond the big band era, Mr. Jacquet later made a notable contribution to sustaining its legacy. A highly successful artistic residency at Harvard in the early 1980s inspired him to form a big band. It toured throughout Europe and the United States over the past two decades and led to a renaissance in Mr. Jacquet's popularity. He jammed with Bill Clinton in 1992 and loaned the president his tenor at the 1993 White House Jazz Festival.

''There are a lot of headaches associated with being a bandleader -- dealing with members who are tardy, meeting the payroll, and so on -- but if you love the music, it's worth it," Mr. Jacquet said in 2003 Globe interview. ''I figure that I might as well have headaches and be happy. Because you're going to get headaches, anyhow."

Mr. Jacquet was the last, and arguably greatest, in the line of ''Texas Tenors" that included Arnett Cobb, Buddy Tate, Budd Johnson, and Herschel Evans: swing saxophonists known for a large, swaggering sound grounded in the blues.

''The phrase refers to that big sound horn players from Texas got," Mr. Jacquet said in a 1991 Globe interview. ''During the days of the early territory bands, they didn't have many microphones for the musicians to blow into. All of the big bands had to have a spark, like the spark plug of a car, and the tenor was the spark. But you had to have a big sound on the horn with the brass section riffing behind you."

His Texas Tenor status notwithstanding, Jean Baptiste Illinois Jacquet was born elsewhere, in Broussard, La., on Oct. 31, 1922, the son of Gilbert Jacquet, a bandleader, and Maggie (Trayhan). The family moved to Houston when he was 1; he joined his father's band at 3, as a singer and dancer.

Mr. Jacquet began playing drums at 13 (it was the only instrument available in his high school band). He then switched to alto saxophone.

From 1938-40, Mr. Jacquet played with Milt Larkins's big band. Then came the key moment in Mr. Jacquet's career. The singer-pianist Nat ''King" Cole introduced Mr. Jacquet to Lionel Hampton. After failing to hire Larkins's tenor saxophonist, Cobb, Hampton took Mr. Jacquet instead -- on the condition that he give up the alto.

The stage was set for ''Flying Home." Perhaps only Louis Armstrong's solo on ''West End Blues" in 1928 and Coleman Hawkins's 1939 solo on ''Body and Soul" exceed it in fame. Hampton had written into the contract of each of his subsequent tenor players that they had to play Mr. Jacquet's 64-bar solo note for note.

''I had just switched from alto to tenor, and was still searching for a style," Mr. Jacquet said in that 1991 interview. ''Every night I'd try to sound like Hawkins, Chu Berry, Ben Webster, somebody else. When we got ready to record that tune, Marshall Royal, Hamp's lead alto player, said 'Why don't you go for yourself?' and I finally did. It was like God told me, 'Take a break -- I got it!' "

He was 19.

Mr. Jacquet left Hampton in 1943 to join Cab Calloway's big band. In 1944, he made his first JatP appearance and took part in the celebrated short film ''Jammin' the Blues." (Fifty years later, Mr. Jacquet would reappear on celluloid, as subject, in the documentary ''Texas Tenor.")

After playing with Count Basie from 1945-46, Mr. Jacquet spent five years leading a small group with his trumpeter brother Russell that combined elements of bebop, swing, and jump blues. Among the band's best-known recordings are the jazz standards ''Robbins Nest" and ''Black Velvet," both composed by Mr. Jacquet.

During the 1950s Mr. Jacquet toured regularly with JatP and began making frequent reunion appearances with Hampton.

In the 1960s he took up the bassoon, recording a memorable version of Thelonious Monk's '' 'Round Midnight." He also formed a trio, with organist Milt Buckner and drummer Jo Jones and began to receive long-overdue recognition as a balladeer.

''The road -- it's a rugged type of life," Mr. Jacquet said in a 1988 Globe interview, ''but after you get seasoned, you look forward to traveling. Everywhere you go, it's just like coming home."

Mr. Jacquet leaves his companion, Carol Sharick; a daughter, Pamela, of Scottsdale, Ariz.; and a granddaughter.

Funeral arrangements are incomplete.