Ralph Moore

Ralph Moore is a tenor saxophonist whose warm, unhurried sound sits squarely in the hard bop mainstream, rooted in John Coltrane but softer at the edges. Born in 1956 in Brixton, London, he moved to California as a teenager and studied at Berklee College of Music before settling in New York in 1981, where he joined the Horace Silver Quintet within months and stayed about four years. He went on to work with Roy Haynes, Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy Gillespie's reunion band, Ray Brown and Gene Harris, and made his first record as a leader for Reservoir in 1985, followed by albums for Landmark, Criss Cross and Savoy. In 1995 he relocated to Los Angeles for a long run in the Tonight Show band under Kevin Eubanks, holding that chair through 2010.