If the bass is supposed to represent the bottom end in the musical scheme, then Jimmy Butts could be said to have a name that is more than just appropriate. The size of the body part with which the bassist's surname shares a slang incarnation may have expanded due to Butts' early membership in a group called Dr. Sausage & His Five Pork Chops; then again, playing in a band with a name like this might kill an appetite rather than stimulate it. At any rate, this group, led by drummer Frank Tyson, shared Butts' bass talents with Daisy Mae's Hepcats; even back then, Butts was being a typical bassist and freelancing his you-know-what off. In the early '40s he began working with Les Hite, then was discovered by the Chris Columbus Band the following year. In 1943 he left this new world of music to work with more of a variety of jazzmen, moving forward stylistically to bands led by Don Redman, Art Hodes, Lem Johnson, Tiny Grimes, and Noble Sissle. During the war years he did a USO tour of the South Pacific backing up the fine singer Frances Brock. In the late '40s and early '50s, Butts ran his own bands as well as working in a duo with Doles Dickens. Butts decided on a seating change in the following decade, plopping his musical rear in Canada and working with pianist Juanita Smith. From the '70s onward he was based out of New York City once again and fronted his own combo, continuing to play well past his 80th birthday. Following his death in 1998, the band continued on under the name of Friends of Jimmy Butts. ~ Eugene Chadbourne