Gérard Badini

Gérard Badini (16 April 1931 – 25 October 2025), known as Mr. Swing, was a French jazz bandleader, composer, reedist and pianist.

Life and career Badini's father was an opera singer. Badini began playing professionally in the early 1950s, playing clarinet in New Orleans jazz-style ensembles with Michel Attenoux, Jimmy Archey, Lil Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Bill Coleman, and Peanuts Holland. In 1955, he joined Claude Bolling's ensemble and then joined Bolling on a worldwide tour as members of Jack Diéval's orchestra. He switched principally to tenor sax beginning in 1958, continuing to work with Bolling as well as Roger Guérin and Geo Daly in the late 1950s. In the 1960s he worked with Alice Babs, Duke Ellington, Jean-Claude Naude, Cat Anderson, Paul Gonsalves, Jef Gilson, and François Guin.

He founded his own group, Swing Machine, in 1973, working in this group with Bobby Durham, Raymond Fol, Michel Gaudry, Helen Humes, Sonny Payne, and Sam Woodyard.