News & Updates — piano

Happy birthday to the underrated bop pianist Walter Davis Jr. Lifelong close friends with Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie and Bud Powell, he was a session pianist of great soulful taste. From Richmond VA, he played as a teenager with Babs Gonzales and got a big gig at the Apollo with Charlie Parker in '49, quitting high school to go on the road with him. He moved to NYC in '50 and made his first recordings with the Max Roach group. He toured South America & the Middle East with Gillespie in '56, and would play with Diz off and on...

Happy birthday to that great hard bop pianist Horace Silver! He was of Cape Verdean heritage but grew up in Connecticut. He studied classical music as well as taking in the music of Cabo Verde that his father taught him. As a teenager he gigged on both piano and tenor sax. After playing with Stan Getz in Hartford in '50 he went on tour with him. He moved to NYC in '51 and started playing with Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins and Lou Donaldson. In '52 he began working for Blue Note Records, as a session pianist and as a recording...

Happy birthday to another one they sometimes call The Fifth Beatle, Billy Preston. The future top session man grew up in Los Angeles a piano prodigy. At 10 he was performing with Mahalia Jackson and was on TV at 11 dueting with Nat King Cole. He played a young WC Handy in the biopic St Louis Blues in '58. He joined Little Richard's group in '62 as the band organist, meeting the Beatles in Germany. In '63 he played on Sam Cooke's absolute classic Night Beat. The same year Cooke produced Preston's first album, 16 Year Old Soul. He joined Ray...

One of my very favorites is the pianist/harpist/composer and cosmic music traveler Alice McLeod, known later as Alice Coltrane. Another great jazz artist from Detroit, she is possibly best known for being the wife and collaborator of John Coltrane, but Alice is an amazing artist in her own right. She brought celestial concepts into the music and fused free jazz, Indian, European classical, new age, bebop and avant-garde into a gorgeously spiritual, intense experience. Her music has gained much more currency in the last twenty years but I have always been a fan. I remember thinking "why are her records...

Happy birthday to that great big-band leader Count Basie. His preserve in the history of jazz is well-documented and much loved. From New Jersey, William James Basie got his start playing in the '20s in Harlem and the Jersey Shore before touring the Vaudeville circuit. He moved to Kansas City in '29 to play with Benny Moten, eventually taking over the band. The group was a hit with the swinging Kansas City scene for many years. After a brief stay in Chicago the band moved to NYC in '37, joining the competitive big band action the city's scene was entertaining...