Frank Anthony Peter Vincent Monterose, Jr., known as J. R. Monterose, was an American jazz saxophonist, playing mainly tenor and occasionally soprano. He began playing clarinet at age thirteen and later took up tenor saxophone after hearing Tex Beneke with the Glenn Miller band. Monterose's professional career started with local dance bands in upstate New York from 1947 to 1949. He later worked with Henry “Hot Lips” Busse’s touring orchestra and the Buddy Rich big band in the early 1950s. In the mid-1950s, he was featured with Claude Thornhill’s orchestra and Teddy Charles’s modernist groups, as well as with Charles Mingus’s Jazz Workshop and Kenny Dorham’s Jazz Prophets. His first album as a leader, J. R. Monterose, was released on Blue Note in 1957, followed by The Message in 1960 for JARO Records. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Monterose performed extensively in Europe, including extended stays in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark. His later years were spent playing at venues in upstate New York such as the Lark Tavern in Albany. He died on September 16, 1993.
