Chris Anderson (pianist)

Chris Anderson (February 26, 1926 – February 4, 2008) was an American jazz pianist, who might be best known as an influence on Herbie Hancock.^[1]

Biography[]

Born in Chicago on February 26, 1926, Anderson taught himself piano and started playing in Chicago clubs in the mid-1940s and played with Von Freeman and Charlie Parker, among others.^[2] Hired as Dinah Washington's accompanist, Anderson's tenure with Washington was brief. Washington, who changed accompanists frequently, fired Anderson in New York six weeks after hiring him, and Anderson decided to stay in the city.

His lifelong fascination with harmony, sparked by movie scores, began well before the age of 10. He was already teaching himself to play on the family piano, so well indeed that he never took lessons -- a clue to the startling originality of his harmonic ideas. Before Chris finished high school, he was playing blues gigs in South Side bars. An after-high school job in a record store exposed him to Nat King Cole, Art Tatum and Duke Ellington; from then on, jazz was his music.

After those first three great mentors, Chris rarely listened to pianists. As he put it, "I'd be more interested in listening to an arranger than to a pianist. Gil Evans for example, or Nelson Riddle -- they fascinated me. The things Riddle did for Sinatra knocked me out." Consistent with his interest for harmony and arrangement, his classical listening favored the great impressionist orchestrators, Debussy and Ravel. By the time he was 18, he was playing piano for , an influential Chicago guitarist who knew almost all the Jazz stars. That year, due to Leo, Chris started playing with Sonny Stitt. Within two years, he was playing the famous Pershing Ballroom concerts with Charlie Parker and Howard McGhee; two of these have been preserved on record. He was 20, and due to steadily worsening cataracts, became completely blind. For the next 15 years as house pianist for several of Chicago's best jazz clubs, Chris played with a steady stream of the greats: Sonny Rollins, Clifford Brown, Gene Ammons, Max Roach, Stan Getz, Johnny Griffin, Roland Kirk. At the same time he was playing with and influencing a whole generation of young Chicago musicians, many of them destined for greatness. Among them were Wilbur Ware, Clifford Jordan, Von Freeman, Billy Wallace, George Coleman, and .

Chris, with characteristic modesty, speaks of them not as followers, but as close musical brothers. "Heck, they influenced me as much as I influenced them." In 1960, Herbie Hancock heard Chris Anderson play. "Chris' music has affected the core of my music very deeply. After hearing him play just once, I begged him to let me study with him. Chris Anderson is a master of harmony and sensitivity. I shall be forever indebted to him and his very special gift." Also in 1960, he recorded what might be his best regarded album My Romance (VeeJay, 1960) with bassist Bill Lee and drummer Art Taylor.

In 1961, Dinah Washington, having run through several piano players in the previous year, asked Chris to tour with her. Despite Chris' brilliance as a singer's accompanist, the musicians in Chicago were betting that he wouldn't last two months with the evil-tempered Dinah. Sure enough, in New York six weeks later, she fired him. Chris decided to stay on and play in New York. His crippling bone condition limited his ability to work, though he appeared regularly as a soloist in Barry Harris's annual concerts and made the most of the gigs he had at Bradley's, the Village Vanguard, the Jazz Gallery, and Smalls.

Through these infrequent appearances his playing was able to influence a handful of younger musicians who were lucky enough to have seen or played with the master, including , and Jason Lindner. He left a small but significant number of recordings. Plans are in the works to make an extensive collection of his music available for posterity.

Despite the respect of his peers, Anderson had difficulty finding work or popular acclaim due in large part to his disabilities. He was blind and his bones were unusually fragile, causing numerous fractures, which at times compromised his ability to perform at the times or places requested,^[3] although he continued to record until he was well into his 70s. A Down Beat profile indicated he had "Osteogenesis", probably meaning osteogenesis imperfecta.^[4]

He died of a stroke on February 4, 2008 in Manhattan, New York City, at the age of 81.

Discography[]

As leader/co-leader[]

As sideman[]

With Clifford Jordan

• Remembering Me-Me (Muse, 1977)
• The Mellow Side of Clifford Jordan (Mapleshade, 1997)

With Charlie Parker

• An Evening at Home with the Bird (Savoy, 1961)
• One Night in Chicago (Savoy, 1980)

With others

• Sun Ra, Sun Ra Sextet at the Village Vanguard (Rounder, 1993)
• Frank Strozier, Long Night (Jazzland, 1961)

References[]

External links[]

• All Music
• The New York Times obituary
• "Herbie Hancock, Chris Anderson and the Chicago School of Modern Jazz Piano" at Jazz.com.