On December 17, 1999, Grover Washington Jr. finished a four-song set on the CBS Saturday Early Show, walked into the green room, and collapsed from a fatal heart attack at 56. This episode looks past that abrupt ending to the universe of sound he built, starting in Buffalo, New York, where a church-chorister mother and a saxophone-playing, record-collecting father surrounded him with gospel and big band jazz. He got his first saxophone at eight, sang with the Teen Kings alongside future organist Lonnie Smith, and grew up beside brothers who played drums and Hammond B3, an instrument whose breathing Leslie-speaker sound shaped the vocal quality he later brought to the horn.

The hosts follow his Midwest gigs, an Army stint that connected him with drummer Billy Cobham, session work in Philadelphia, and the Kudu Records date where he filled in  ...