It was a great experience to play regularly with Nobel. The more I played with him the more I heard what he was playing. The thing that I found most unique was his phrasing. Like many horn players from his generation, even modern players, they play everything as 8th, quarter, 16th etc….notes all within the bar. Nobel didn’t always play that cliche. Especially on a slow blues or ballad he really stretched the time. Modernist may call it playing outside the bar lines. His feel and groove was deep into the 4/4 pulse. At the time I was playing with him, in the 90s, my frame of mind pertaining to jazz was not really swing, but hearing Nobel and his style woke me up to that feel. Nobel did time in many historic bands. Nobel was on of the original music students at Florida A&M, his schoolmate, another Floridian was Cannonball Adderley. Nobel also played with Buddy Holly, Dinah Washington, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis,The Everly Brothers, Johnny Mathis and more.
Nobel “Thin Man” Watts