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Duke Jordan

Irving Sydney Jordan was born in New York in 1922, and began his formal piano studies at the age of eight.He continued to study piano until he was 16, playing in the school band at Brooklyn Automotive High. After graduation in 1939 he joined the septet of trombonist Steve Pulliam. This combo, appearing in an amateur contest at the New York World's Fair that summer, won a prize and earned the attention of John Hammond, who was impressed by the teen-aged efforts of young Duke. The unit stayed together for a year or two, after which Duke entered what, was almost certainly the most important formative phase of his career.

Jazz was undergoing a quiet but vital upheaval in 1941. Around the time when Duke Jordan went to work at a club in Harlem, the experiments that were to crystallize in the form of bebop had gotten underway at several uptown clubs. The group was under the nominal leadership of Clark Monroe, the veteran night club host who was involved in the operation of a series of clubs, including his own Uptown House where Charlie Parker first worked in New York.

Thus, though Duke gained his first experience in jazz through the records of Teddy Wilson, Art Tatum and their contemporaries, he was exposed early to the work of Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, as well as to Gillespie and Parker. Duke was one of the very first to play in what was then a revolutionary new style; in fact the only other bop pianists of any note on the 52nd Street horizon, aside from Powell himself, were Al Haig, Billy Taylor and George Wallington.

For a while Duke played with Coleman Hawkins at Kelly's Stable, in a combo similar to the one that had been organized by Clark Monroe. After this he returned to the uptown front, working for a year with a "jump band" called the Savoy Sultans, which functioned as a part-time house band at the late lamented Savoy Ballroom.

Charlie Parker was sufficiently impressed by Duke to hire him for his quintet. Duke worked intermittently for Bird during this period (1946-48), the other members of the group being Miles Davis, Max Roach and Tommy Potter. A handful of recordings from 1947 and 1948 featuring Parker, along with Miles Davis on trumpet, Jordan on piano and Max Roach on drums, are considered masterpieces. They include “Embraceable You,” “Crazeology,” and “Scrapple From the Apple.”

Charlie Parker: Birth Of Bebop - Celebrating Bird At 100

Read "Birth Of Bebop - Celebrating Bird At 100" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
August 2, 2020

Let's face it, there is absolutely nothing new to say about the music of Charlie Parker, unless (insert joke here) you happen to be Phil Schaap. Lao Tzu's quote “The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long" is fitting. John Coltrane was 40 when he died in 1967, Eric Dolphy 36 in 1964, and Clifford Brown died at 25 in 1956. Parker was dead at the age of thirty-five in 1955. His legend has grown larger with ...

Album Review

Tina Brooks Quintet: The Complete Recordings

Read "The Complete Recordings" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
March 9, 2020

Mosaic Records' spring 2020 release The Complete Hank Mobley Blue Note Sessions 1963-70, the second of the label's box sets devoted to the copiously recorded (and rightly so) Hank Mobley, prompts thoughts of another of Blue Note's singular hard-bop tenor saxophone stylists. Unlike Mobley, Tina Brooks was woefully under-recorded, making just four albums under his own name. But like Mobley, Brooks had an instantly recognisable sound, was a spellbinding soloist and was also a gifted composer. In addition to his ...

My Blue Note Obsession

Duke Jordan: Flight to Jordan - 1960

by Marc Davis
January 3, 2016

If this isn't a perfect hard bop record, it comes awfully close. And coming from an artist who is virtually forgotten, it's all the sweeter. Duke Jordan was an A-list pianist who was there at the birth of bebop. He was part of Charlie Parker's classic quintet in 1947. So why don't we know his name the way we know Thelonious Monk's or Bud Powell's? My guess is Jordan just didn't have the personality to be ...

266

Album Review

Duke Jordan: In Copenhagen

Read "In Copenhagen" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
August 28, 2009

Irving Stanley “Duke" Jordan, pianist in legendary altoist Charlie Parker's classic quintet, recorded this solo album late in life. It shows he had lost none of the qualities that led Bird to pick him to take part--along with trumpeter Miles Davis, bassist Tommy Potter and drummer Max Roach--in such landmark recordings as “Bird of Paradise," “Dewey Square," “Dexterity" and “Embraceable You." It also shows that, as a composer, Jordan still had the chops that gave birth to ...

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Album Review

Duke Jordan Quintet: Duke's Delight

Read "Duke's Delight" reviewed by Mike Neely

by Mike Neely
December 6, 2007

Duke's Delight is a classy recording from a pianist of renown. While the tape was rolling Duke Jordan's playing was inspired, and the band stayed right with him throughout this session, which includes five Jordan compositions and Duke Ellington's “In My Solitude."

Playing piano in a sax and trumpet format is a setting long familiar to Jordon, and his clear, melodic lines rise above a tight band that is consistently up for the challenge. Charlie Rouse ...

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Album Review

Duke Jordan: Flight to Norway

Read "Flight to Norway" reviewed by Derek Taylor

by Derek Taylor
October 25, 2003

Jazz pianists in the era of Monk and Powell faced an almost Sisyphean task when it came to currying popularity with the public. These two doyens of the instrument cast a nimbus of influence so wide that even luminaries like Elmo Hope and Herbie Nichols were subsumed in their shadows. Despite being present during the birthing of be-bop and serving as Charlie “Bird” Parker’s pianist, Duke Jordan was another one caught under blinding Klieg lights that the two put up. ...

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Duke Jordan

Source: Michael Ricci
April 1, 2023

All About Jazz is celebrating Duke Jordan's birthday today!

Duke Jordan was a pianist whose work with the saxophonist Charlie Parker endures in the jazz pantheon. Jordan was regarded as one of the great early bebop pianists, the sound that he helped to create in the postwar era was something new, and it remains a cornerstone of jazz. Irving Sydney Jordan was born in New York in 1922, and began his formal piano studies at the age of eight.He continued ...
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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Duke Jordan

Source: Michael Ricci
April 1, 2022

All About Jazz is celebrating Duke Jordan's birthday today!

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Duke Jordan

Source: Michael Ricci
April 1, 2021

All About Jazz is celebrating Duke Jordan's birthday today!

Recording

Duke Jordan: Stan Getz Plays

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
January 16, 2021

On December 12 and 29, 1952, tenor saxophonist Stan Getz took his working quintet into a studio in New York to record two 10-inch LPs for Norman Granz's Clef Records. They would be named Stan Getz Plays and The Artistry of Stan Getz. On piano was Duke Jordan, with Jimmy Raney on guitar, Bill Crow on bass and Frank Isola on drums. On the 12th, the quintet recorded Stella By Starlight, Time on My Hands, 'Tis Autumn, The Way You ...
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Recording

Duke Jordan: Flight to Jordan

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
January 15, 2021

Yesterday, I posted on pianist Duke Jordan's first trio leadership session, in 1954. Today, I want to share one of his finest albums, Flight to Jordan, his first and only Blue Note release. The album is solid for several reasons: the group is tight and in the groove; all of the tracks, except I Should Care, were originals by Jordan; and the distinct instrumental personality of each individual member came together to create a gorgeous sound. Recorded in August 1960 ...
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Video / DVD

Duke Jordan: First Trio Session

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
January 14, 2021

Pianist Duke Jordan has always been exceptional. At age 25, in 1947, he began playing and recording with the Charlie Parker Quintet, which included Miles Davis (tp), Tommy Potter (b) and Max Roach (d). As a bebop pianist, Jordan's genius was his ability to operate on three levels at once. He kept superb time on the keyboard, on ballads or hell-raisers; he had a terrific sense of space, pausing momentarily in places to let the sound settle in the ear; ...
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