Horace Parlan, an acclaimed jazz pianist whose style was unlike anyone else’s, largely because he had to compensate for a partly disabled hand, died on Feb. 23 in Korsor, Denmark. He was 86.
His death, in a nursing home, was announced by the Danish jazz historian Frank Buchmann-Moller. Mr. Parlan had lived in Denmark since 1972.
Unable to use the middle two fingers of his right hand, Mr. Parlan still forged a style that impressed critics — Robert Palmer of The New York Times praised his “combination of blues-rooted funk and exploratory zeal” — as well as his fellow musicians. The bassist and composer Charles Mingus gave him his first significant national exposure in the late 1950s; he worked with the saxophonist and flutist Rahsaan Roland Kirk in the mid-1960s; and he had a long and fruitful association with the saxophonist Archie Shepp, beginning in 1977.
He also recorded frequently as a leader. He made several albums for Blue Note in the 1960s and for the Danish label SteepleChase in the ’70s and ’80s.
Mr. Parlan’s approach to the piano required “developing a facility with my right hand that I worked out myself,” he explained to The New York Times in 1984. “I was trying to voice chords using as few notes as possible.”
Of necessity, he also made greater use of his left hand than most jazz pianists do when improvising melody lines. As he put it to JazzTimes magazine in 2000, “I had to find a groove of my own.”
Horace Lumont Parlan was born in Pittsburgh on Jan. 19, 1931. His parents, who adopted him when he was a few weeks old, gave him piano lessons as therapy when he was 7, two years after polio left him partly paralyzed on the right side of his body.
His teacher was not encouraging, and the lessons did not last long. He gave the piano another try with another teacher when he was 12, and this time he embraced the challenge.
Mr. Parlan studied law at the University of Pittsburgh at the urging of his parents. But he abandoned those studies after 18 months to pursue a career in jazz, and by 1952 he was performing regularly in Pittsburgh.
He moved to New York in 1957 and, shortly after arriving, became a member of Mingus’s ensemble. He remained until 1959 and was prominently featured on the Mingus albums “Mingus Ah Um” and “Blues and Roots.”
Like many other American jazz musicians of his generation, Mr. Parlan eventually moved to Europe, frustrated by what he called “a rise of overt racism” in the United States as well as the shrinking market for jazz there. He became a mainstay of the European jazz scene, working with fellow expatriates like the saxophonist Dexter Gordon, but was largely forgotten in the United States and rarely returned.
In 2000, he was the subject of a documentary film, “Horace Parlan by Horace Parlan,” directed by Don McGlynn.
Mr. Parlan’s wife, Norma, died a few years ago. No immediate family members survive.
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Horace Parlan (January 19, 1931, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – February 23, 2017, Korsør, Denmark[1]) was an American hard bop and post-bop piano player.
In his birth year, Parlan was stricken with polio, resulting in the partial crippling of his right hand. The handicap, though, contributed to his development of a particularly "pungent" left-hand chord voicing style, while comping with highly rhythmic phrases with the right.[2]
Between 1952 and 1957, he worked in Washington DC with Sonny Stitt and then spent two years with Mingus' Jazz Workshop.[2] In 1973, Parlan moved to Copenhagen, Denmark. He later settled in the small village of Rude in southern Zealand. In 1974 he completed a State Department tour of Africa with Hal Singer.[2]
His later work, such as a series of duos with the tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp, included the album Goin' Home, was steeped in gospel music.
Parlan received the 2000 Ben Webster Prize awarded by the Ben Webster Foundation.
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Horace Parlan (b. January 19, 1931, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – d. February 23, 2017, Korsør, Denmark) was an American hard bop and post-bop piano player. He was known for his contributions to the Charles Mingus recordings Mingus Ah Um and Blues & Roots.
In his birth year, Parlan was stricken with polio, resulting in the partial crippling of his right hand. The handicap, though, contributed to his development of a distinctive left-hand chord voicing style, while comping with highly rhythmic phrases with the right.
Between 1952 and 1957, Parlan worked in Washington, D. C. with Sonny Stitt and then spent two years with Mingus' Jazz Workshop. In 1973, Parlan moved to Copenhagen, Denmark. He later settled in the small village of Rude in southern Zealand. In 1974, he completed a State Department tour of Africa with Hal Singer.
His later work, such as a series of duos with the tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp, included the album Goin' Home, was steeped in gospel music.
Parlan received the 2000 Ben Webster Prize.
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