Cedar walton - firm roots

With Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt

With Art Blakey

• Mosaic (Blue Note, 1961)
• Three Blind Mice (Blue Note, 1962)
• Caravan (Riverside, 1963)
• Ugetsu (Riverside, 1963)
• Buhaina's Delight (Blue Note, 1963)
• Free for All (Blue Note, 1964)
• Kyoto (Riverside, 1964)
• Indestructible (Blue Note, 1964)
• Golden Boy (Colpix, 1964)
• Buhaina (Prestige, 1973)
• Anthenagin (Prestige, 1973)

With Donald Byrd

With Sonny Criss

With Kenny Dorham

With Art Farmer

With Curtis Fuller

With Benny Golson

With Dexter Gordon

With Steve Grossman

• Love Is the Thing (Red, 1985)
• A Small Hotel (Dreyfus Jazz, 1993)

With Eddie Harris

With Jimmy Heath

With Billy Higgins

With Freddie Hubbard

With Bobby Hutcherson

With Milt Jackson

• Milt Jackson at the Museum of Modern Art (Limelight, 1965)
• Born Free (Limelight, 1966)
• Milt Jackson and the Hip String Quartet (Verve, 1968)
• Goodbye (CTI, 1973)
• Olinga (CTI, 1974)
• Milt Jackson at the Kosei Nenkin (Pablo, 1976)
• Bags' Bag (Pablo, 1979)
• It Don't Mean a Thing If You
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  Interview by Molly Murphy for the NEA
  July 24, 2009
  Edited by Don Ball

  BORN IN TEXAS

  NEA: So you were born down in Texas?

  Cedar Walton: Yeah, I was born in Dallas, Texas, in a place named Pinkston Clinic by a Dr. Pinkston himself, who was a family friend. And I'll just never forget that because in my later visits to Dallas, they built a freeway through there and the clinic was gone. If you live long enough, you'll see this kind of thing. Here's a place that you used to love is gone. Even the house I really grew up in, just a vacant lot, so when I take people there and say, "That's where I grew up," it's not the same thing as showing them a structure. You know what I mean?

  NEA: Can you recall any very specific experiences you had as a kid where you were hearing jazz that were pivotal and maybe directed you down sort of a path of music?

  Cedar Walton: Definitely, yeah. My mother, Ruth, in the first place, started me out on piano. She played piano. She played sheet music and sang along with herself to entertain herself and she had aspirations to be a concert pianist, but

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  Cedar: The Life and Music of Cedar Walton

  About Markley's Cedar

  Grammy Award–winning pianist, bandleader, and composer Cedar Walton (1934–2013) is a major figure in jazz, associated with a variety of styles from bebop to funk and famous for composing several standards. Born and raised in Dallas, Walton studied music in Denver, where he jammed with musicians such as Charlie Parker and John Coltrane. In 1955, Walton moved to New York, immediately gaining recognition from notable musicians and nightclub proprietors. When Walton returned to the U.S. after serving abroad in the Army, he joined Benny Golson and Art Farmer’s Jazztet. Later, he became both pianist and arranger for Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Next, he worked as part of Prestige Records’s house rhythm section, recording with numerous greats and releasing his own albums.

  One hallmark of Walton’s impact is his numerous long-term collaborations with giants such as trombonist Curtis Fuller and drummer Billy Higgins. By the end of his career, Walton’s discography, as both band member and