News & Updates — piano

Though never a household name, pianist, big-band leader, composer and community activist Horace Tapscott was a major figure on the Los Angeles jazz scene. As a teenager he, Don Cherry & Billy Higgins played together and took in the legendarily thriving Central Ave bop scene of the late '40s. Initially a trombonist, he got a call to work with Lionel Hampton before moving to piano (the Thelonious Monk and Herbie Nichols influence is evident). In '61 he formed the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, a progressive big band that included poets, dancers and a good amount of activist spirit. In '63 he...

Blues-boogie piano star Camille Howard was one of the better known female talents of the early R&B and jump-blues years. One of the finest blues piano players of the era, she rocked the Los Angeles scene with her own groups, as well as with her husband Roy Milton's band as pianist and occasional singer (and he drummed on many of her records). Out of Galveston TX, she was performing in the local Texas nightclubs by the mid-'30s. She moved to California in the early '40s and joined Milton's band, making her recorded debut with them in '45 for Lionel Hampton's...

The Catalan pianist Tete Montoliu was born in 1933 in Barcelona. He came from a musical family that had Don Byas as a housemate in the family home. Blind since birth, he learned to read Braille music. Influenced by Art Tatum and Duke Ellington, he came out of the conservatory and started touring with Lionel Hampton in '55 and proceeded to become one of the top jazz players in Europe, eventually gaining a solid reputation internationally. He cut a lot of solo records, sometimes played with vocalists or in duo format (with saxophonist George Coleman, for example) but often could...

The underrated composer & avant-jazz pioneer Lennie Tristano may not get as much respect as he deserves, but the guy helped bridge bop to free jazz in the late '40's(!). A gifted pianist, the young Tristano, totally blind by age 9, did his first "pro" gigs at 11, playing clarinet in a Chicago whorehouse. He played saxophone and piano in "rumba" bands in the early '40s and was a teacher to future professional collaborators Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh. He went to NYC in '46 and started hangin' and playin' with Bird. In '49 his group recorded the first free...

Some may view Nat King Cole as an apolitical jazz-gone-pop sell-out "Uncle Tom" (as he has been called by some radicals) who moved into the upper-crust white neighborhood and made a bunch of Christmas dreck and soft music. Or you could view him as a major black superstar who had his hand in a number of respectable endeavors with much success. Regardless, it is hard to deny his sweet voice and the immense popularity he found. A talented pianist, he found that audiences started preferring his vocal numbers more than the instrumentals so he obliged with his smooth baritone. A...