Ray Crawford was a clarinet and tenor player with Fletcher Henderson between 1941-1943, but he was forced to quit by tuberculosis. He moved to guitar, and was a key part of Ahmad Jamal’s early bands (1949-1955). His ability to make his guitar sound bongos by hitting the strings was quickly adopted by Herb Ellis. Crawford recorded with Gil Evans (1959-1960), and played on and off with Jimmy Smith throughout the 1960s and ’60s. Candid (1961), Dobre (1977), United National (1978) were his most obscure recordings. bio from www.allmusic.com
