Don Pullen
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Biography
Avant-garde jazz pianist and organist Don Pullen made a career out of making the experimental accessible. Born on Christmas Day, 1941, in Roanoke, Virginia, Pullen wasnât afraid to weave a catchy melody into his complex compositions and improvisations -- sometimes played using the backs of his hands or his elbows -- and spent decades as both a band leader and valued sideman. Pullen left home to study medicine in North Carolina, but the pull of the music world was too great to resist. He took a detour to Chicago before landing in New York, and worked his way into the jazz scene in the late 1960s. The early â70s brought gigs playing with Nina Simone, Ruth Brown, and Art Blakeyâs Jazz Messengers, but it was his tenure accompanying Charles Mingus that put him firmly on the jazz map.
He delivered his self-descriptive debut, Solo Piano Album, in 1975, and would release new albums at a steady clip for the rest of his life. In 1979 he teamed up with jazz woodwind player George Adams in the George Adams/Don Pullen Quartet, a collaboration that spanned nearly a full decade. Initially their albums were only available in Europe, but by their 1986 album Breakthrough, the quartet had signed to Blue Note Records, which would be both the quartet and Pullenâs home for the rest of their respective careers. In the â90s he also spent time exploring Latin jazz with his band the African-Brazilian Connection, whose 1993 album Ode to Life made it to Number 5 on the Billboard jazz chart. Pullen died of lymphoma on April 22, 1995, just after completing his final record, Sacred Common Ground.
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Albums
Top Tracks
- Track Popularity
- Paraty
- Jana's Delight
- Big Alice
- Dialogue Between Malcom And Betty
- Richards Tune (Dedicate to Muhal Richard Abrams)
- Resting On The Road
- Reprise: Still Here
- Bye-ya
- The Eagle Staff Is First
- The Third House on the Right
- Reservation Blues
- River Song
- El Matador
- Message In Smoke
- Aseeko! (Get up and Dance!)
- Common Ground
- Variation on Ode to Life
- Anastasia/Pyramid
- New Beginnings
- Cimili/Drum Talk
- Make Someone Happy
- Last Year's Lies And Tomorrow's Promises
- At The Cafe Centrale
- Once Upon A Time
