Ralph Sutton

Emerging after World War II, Ralph Sutton ranked as the foremost stride pianist of his era, rivaled closely only by the late Dick Wellstood and the multifaceted Dick Hyman. In his cohort he stood virtually alone in sustaining the keyboard approaches of Fats Waller and James P. Johnson, employing them not as archival relics but as springboards for vigorous, spontaneous invention. Remaining faithful to the stylistic limits set by those forebears, he nevertheless stamped the music with a distinctive personal voice; his formidable left hand had few equals. He joined Jack Teagarden’s large ensemble for a short spell in 1942 and afterward fulfilled his military service. Once the war ended, Sutton became a frequent guest on Rudi Blesh’s This Is Jazz broadcasts and served eight years as the relief pianist at Eddie Condon’s club, where he also made numerous recordings. Subsequent engagements took him to San Francisco, where he worked with Bob Scobey, before he relocated to Aspen in the middle of the 1960s and helped form the World’s Greatest Jazz Band alongside Yank Lawson, Bob Haggart, and Bud Freeman. Throughout the 1970s he produced a series of dynamic sessions for the Chaz imprint and later appeared on releases from numerous other companies. Although a stroke slowed him in the early 1990s, he maintained an active calendar of jazz-party and festival appearances into the middle of the decade. On December 29, 2001, he died suddenly in his automobile outside a restaurant in Evergreen, Colorado. Had he reached artistic maturity in the 1930s rather than the 1950s, greater recognition would likely have come his way, yet by the time of his passing it was clear that Ralph Sutton belonged among the finest classic-jazz pianists in history.