Horace Parlan (born January 19, 1931 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American hard bop and post-bop piano player.
Noted for his contributions to the classic Charles Mingus recordings Mingus Ah Um and Blues & Roots, Parlan often bridges the divide between the chordal sophistication of the bop idiom and the African-American "roots."
As a child, Parlan was stricken with polio, resulting in the partial crippling of his right hand. The handicap, th...
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Horace Parlan (born January 19, 1931 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American hard bop and post-bop piano player.
Noted for his contributions to the classic Charles Mingus recordings Mingus Ah Um and Blues & Roots, Parlan often bridges the divide between the chordal sophistication of the bop idiom and the African-American "roots."
As a child, Parlan was stricken with polio, resulting in the partial crippling of his right hand. The handicap, though, has contributed to his development of a particularly "pungent" left-hand chord voicing style, while comping with highly rhythmic phrases with the right.
Between 1952-57, he worked in Washington DC with Sonny Stitt and then spent two years with Charles Mingus' Jazz Workshop.
In 1973, Parlan moved to Copenhagen, Denmark, where he has been living ever since.
In 1974 he did a State Department tour of Africa with Hal Singer.
His later work, notably a series of duos with the tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp, including the album Goin' Home,...
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