Eric Reed

Pianist Eric Reed first gained widespread notice in the late 1980s through his role in Wynton Marsalis’ ensemble, where his command of straight-ahead post-bop and gospel idioms stood out. Launching an independent path afterward, he has delivered numerous acclaimed recordings that intertwine jazz, swing, and African-American church music, among them the 1993 release It’s All Right to Swing, 1998’s Pure Imagination, and 2009’s Stand!. His contributions appear on Marsalis projects including the 1992 album Citi Movement and the 1997 Pulitzer Prize-winning Blood on the Fields. Reed has since broadened his palette, moving from gospel- and hard bop-oriented efforts such as 2019’s Everybody Gets the Blues into wider collaborations like the 2020 quartet album Prism alongside saxophonist Ralph Moore and Denmark’s Matthias Petri and Andreas Svendsen.

Philadelphia-born in 1970, Reed absorbed music early through his father, a minister and local gospel singer. He took up the piano at age two, soon gravitated toward jazz, and quickly emerged as a prodigy. Enrolling in music school at seven, he favored jazz over classical studies, drawing inspiration from Dave Brubeck, Ramsey Lewis, Art Blakey, and Horace Silver. Four years later his family relocated to Los Angeles, where he immersed himself in jazz history and began performing across the local scene as a teenager, leading groups and accompanying figures such as Gerald Wilson, Teddy Edwards, John Clayton, and Clora Bryant. He met Wynton Marsalis at seventeen and toured briefly with the trumpeter the next year, during his sole term at Cal State-Northridge. In 1989 Reed became Marsalis’ pianist, succeeding Marcus Roberts, and the following year issued his debut leader date, A Soldier’s Hymn, on Candid, supported by bassist Dwayne Burno and drummer Gregory Hutchinson.

Between 1991 and 1992 he worked as a sideman with Freddie Hubbard and Joe Henderson before rejoining Marsalis late in 1992. For MoJazz he recorded the well-received 1993 album It’s All Right to Swing and its 1994 follow-up The Swing and I, then led his own group on tour for the first time in 1995. Impulse! issued two further sets, 1996’s Musicale and 1997’s Pure Imagination, the latter reaching number eight on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart; these projects reflected a maturing style and rising acclaim. From 1996 to 1998 he also performed with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. His first Verve outing, 1999’s Manhattan Melodies, offered a vivid tribute to New York City, while that same year he scored the Eddie Murphy/Martin Lawrence film Life. Reed maintained ties with Marsalis into the new millennium.

Happiness, released on Nagel-Heyer in 2001, earned strong praise, and 2002 brought both From My Heart and the duet album We with trombonist Wycliffe Gordon. He continued recording steadily, including a second volume with Gordon titled We, Vol. 2 and multiple sessions for Savant. In 2009 he issued the gospel-inspired Stand!, followed in 2010 by the duet album Plenty Swing, Plenty Soul with Cyrus Chestnut.

With 2011’s The Dancing Monk, Reed began a sustained exploration of Thelonious Monk’s repertoire that continued through 2012’s Baddest Monk and 2014’s The Adventurous Monk. Also in 2014 he released Groovewise on Smoke Sessions, featuring saxophonist Seamus Blake, bassist Ben Williams, and drummer Gregory Hutchinson. Williams returned for 2017’s A Light in the Darkness, which revisited Reed’s gospel foundations. In 2019 he recorded his second Smoke Sessions album, Everybody Gets the Blues, with saxophonist Tim Green, bassist Mike Gurrola, and drummer McClenty Hunter. The next year Reed joined bassist Matthias Petri, saxophonist Ralph Moore, and drummer Andreas Svendsen for the quartet debut Prism, and simultaneously issued his third Smoke Sessions date, For Such a Time as This, a quintet session with saxophonist Chris Lewis.