Ellis Larkins, a jazz pianist, was best known for his understated elegance as an improviser and his sensitivity as an accompanist.
Ellis Lane Larkins was born into a musical family in Baltimore on May 15, 1923. His mother was a pianist, and his father, who earned his living as a janitor, played violin with the Baltimore City Colored Orchestra. When Mr. Larkins was 6, his father began giving him piano lessons, and within a few years he, too, was playing with the orchestra.
At 15 he began studies at the Peabody Conservatory, and two years later he received a scholarship to the Juilliard School of Music, where he studied for three years. In an interview with Whitney Balliett of The New Yorker, Mr. Ellis, a notoriously shy man, recalled the triumphant conclusion of his Juilliard years. ''I had to give a little dissertation before I graduated,'' he said, ''but I knew I couldn't get up there and talk. I was standing on a corner of Madison Avenue, on my way to the event, when what I'd do came to me: demonstrate the similarities between the melodic lines of Bach and boogie-woogie. The teacher told me afterward that he knew I'd made up the whole thing on the spot but that I'd done it very well.''
The decision to link Bach with boogie-woogie came to characterize Mr. Larkins's jazz work. Although he sometimes said that he pursued a career in jazz because there were no opportunities for black musicians in the classical field, he never played like a man for whom jazz was a second choice. He deftly bridged the concert hall and the nightclub, keeping the tempos moderate and the volume low while combining rhythmic drive, harmonic intricacy, and an almost Baroque approach to melodic embellishment. [The New York Times]
Tracklist:
01 Medley: Manhattan Serenade / Lullaby of Broadway / Autumn In New York / The Blue Room / Sidewalks of New York / Lullaby of Birdland / Forty-Five Minutes From Broadway / Forty-Second Street
02 Medley: (When We're Alone) Penthouse Serenade / You're Blasé / Down In The Depths of The 90th Floor / Give My Regards To Broadway / Stompin' At The Savoy / One For My Baby (And One More For The Road) / Manhattan
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