Wynton Kelly
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Wynton Kelly (December 2, 1931 in Jamaica — April 12, 1971, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada) was a jazz pianist who spent his career in the United States of America.
He is perhaps best known for working with trumpeter Miles Davis in the '50s.
[edit] Biography
Kelly started his professional career as a teenager, initially as a member of R&B groups. After working with Lee Abrams, Cecil Payne, Dinah Washington and Dizzy Gillespie[1], he was a member of Miles Davis's Quintet from 1959 to 1963. He appears on Davis's seminal 1959 album Kind of Blue, replacing Bill Evans on the track "Freddie Freeloader" (with Davis asking Kelly to sound more like Ahmad Jamal). He likewise appears on a single track from John Coltrane's Giant Steps, replacing Tommy Flanagan on "Naima".
Miles Davis described Kelly as a "hybrid" of Red Garland and Bill Evans. This is a very accurate description of Kelly by his former bandleader, as Kelly played with an underlying driving rhythm (à la Red Garland), and yet played with a fair amount of understatement, in the tradition of Bill Evans.
Most jazz pianists consider Wynton Kelly to be the most swinging jazz pianist ever. An analysis of his eighth notes reveals that he widely varied his swing ratios. Sometimes he had a tendency to play eighth notes closer to straight-eighth notes, rather than the more traditional swing-eighth notes, and also to play more "on top of" the beat and less "laid back" than was the custom of earlier pianists. Kelly also tended to play his more even eighth-note lines with a fairly staccato touch. This stylistic trait lead the way for pianists such as McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock, who adopted and expanded on this concept for a more "modern" sound.
A superb accompanist, Wynton Kelly was also a distinctive soloist. He recorded 14 titles for Blue Note in a trio (1951), and worked with Dinah Washington, Dizzy Gillespie, and Lester Young during 1951-1952. After serving in the military, he worked with Dinah Washington (1955-1957), Charles Mingus (1956-1957), and the Dizzy Gillespie big band (1957), but he would be most famous for his stint with Miles Davis (1959-1963), recording such albums with Miles as Kind of Blue, At the Blackhawk, and Someday My Prince Will Come. When he left Davis, Kelly took the rest of the rhythm section (bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Jimmy Cobb) with him to form his trio. The group actually sounded at its best backing Wes Montgomery.
Before his early death, Kelly recorded as a leader for Blue Note, Riverside Records, Vee-Jay, Verve, and Milestone. Kelly had a daughter, Tracy, in 1963, with partner Anne. The track, "Little Tracy", from the LP Coming In the Back Door, is named after Kelly's daughter. Tracy Matisak is a now a Philadelphia television personality.
Kelly's second cousin, bassist Marcus Miller, also performed with Miles Davis in the eighties and nineties.
[edit] Select discography
- Blues On Purpose (1965; Xanadu Records)
