Mance, Julian Clifford, Jr.,
“Junior,” 1928-2021, American jazz
pianist and composer, b. Evanston, Illinois. Taught to play boogie and
stride piano by his father, Mance was already performing locally at the age
of 10. While attending college at Roosevelt University, he began playing
with saxophonist Gene Ammons, traveling with Ammons’s group to New
York in the late ‘40s. He was drafted in 1951, and played with the
36th Army Band at Fort Knox, Kentucky. After service, he worked as an
accompanist for Dinah Washington from 1954-56, and as a member of Cannonball
Adderley’s and Dizzy Gillespie’s bands through the
end of the decade. Mance made his solo recording debut in 1959, achieving
his greatest success as a soloist in the mid-‘60s-‘70s, taking
a variety of approaches from big band jazz to experimenting with fusion. He
taught jazz piano at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music for 23
years (1987-2000), and played a residency at New York’s Café Loup
every Sunday night from 2007-2016. He was part of the “100 Gold
Fingers” tours from 1990-2009, which featured a rotating lineup of
“all-star” pianists. Mance was inducted into the International
Jazz Hall of Fame in 1997.
See his How to Play Blues Piano (1967).
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