Red Garland

Red Garland fused the prevailing stylistic currents of his era—Nat Cole, Bud Powell, and Ahmad Jamal—into a singular personal idiom whose hallmark block chords would in turn shape pianists throughout the 1960s. He first took up clarinet and alto before turning to piano at age 18. Between 1946 and 1955 he worked regularly in New York and Philadelphia, supporting major figures such as Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, and Roy Eldridge while remaining largely unknown. Visibility arrived once he joined the celebrated Miles Davis Quintet of 1955–1958, leading a rhythm section that also featured Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones. After parting from Miles, Garland led his own successful trio and recorded extensively for Prestige, Jazzland, and Moodsville from 1956 to 1962, most of those sessions later reissued in the Original Jazz Classics series. He eventually returned to Texas for a stretch of semi-retirement, then reappeared gradually in the 1970s with dates for MPS in 1971 and Galaxy from 1977 to 1979 before withdrawing once more.