Claude Piron born 25 January 1936

Claude Piron (January 25, 1936 – August 7, 2020) was a pioneering French rock 'n' roll singer-songwriter better known by his stage name Danny Boy. Often cited as one of the first French rock artists, he achieved fame in the early 1960s, particularly as the frontman for Danny Boy & The Pénitents. 

Claude Louis René Piron was born in 1936 in Saint-Pierre-de-Cormeilles (Eure). He began his career as a singer after having worked for some time as a fishmonger. The young Piron performed in the casinos of Cassis, Bandol and La Ciotat. His artistic career took a turn when he met the singer Henri Genès in 1956, who invited him to join his tour .That year he also began his solo recording career with the Ducretet Thomson record label which included a cover of  When, a hit by the Kalin Twins, renamed Viens. But the success was only very moderate: he was unable to persuade his record company to focus his singing on the rock 'n' roll he had just discovered and loved.         

                          

                                   

In 1960, he changed record companies to put more rock in his repertoire and became the leader of the group Danny Boy and his Pénitents, originally composed of three studio jazzmen: Raymond Beau (guitar), Marc Thomas (double bass), and a drummer whose name does not seem to have been preserved by posterity. According to legend, they did not want to be known backing a rocker. Danny then has the idea of putting balaclavas on them. After a few months, the trio was replaced by four young, more convinced instrumentalists: Bruno (guitar), Ralaï (guitar), Louis (bass guitar) and José (drums). This time, his record sales were more successful.

In 1962, Danny Boy and his Penitents were hired for an eight-month tour with the Pinder circus. As disagreements settled in the group, they did not end it and Les Penguins replaced the Penitents at short notice, for the last month. In total, the show was seen by one and a half million spectators in two hundred and eighty-four cities. Danny Boy continued his career for a while, accompanied by various bands, including The Penguins, The Smurfs and even a reunion of Les Pénitents (this time without a balaclava). In the cinema, Danny Boy played himself in the 1964 Italian-French film The Difficulty of Being Unfaithful, directed by Bernard Toublanc-Michel and nominated at the Berlin Film Festival for the Golden Bear. 

His "swan song" was his participation in 1967 in the "L'Épopée du rock" tour, with Vince Taylor. Danny Boy then returned to his former activity as a fishmonger in the Normandy markets. But the call of the stage was too strong: he made his comeback in 2004 with a new band, Les Guitar Express. He performed regularly in Paris at Le Petit Journal - Montparnasse and performed at a few galas in the provinces. He was also part of the "Rock'n'Roll Legend" tour, alongside Jean Veidly of the Pirates, Vic Laurens of the Vautours, and Mike Shannon of the Wild Cats. 

In the fall of 2019, Danny Boy released a new and final album, which he presented on stage in Pont-Audemer, his Normandy stronghold. The track Every Day, a duet with his partner Rosy Kikour, closes the career of this pioneer of French rock in romanticism. He  died on August 7, 2020 in Le Havre, where he had been hospitalized for several days. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & Le Figaro) 

  

Bobby Wellins born 24 January 1936

Bobby Wellins (24 January 1936 – 27 October 2016) was a Scottish tenor saxophonist.

Robert Coull Wellins was born in Glasgow. Both his father, Max Wellins, a saxophonist, and his mother, Sally Coull, a singer, were performers with the Sammy Miller Show Band, and his father was Bobby’s first saxophone teacher, introducing him to the alto at the age of 12, and then to jazz harmony on the piano, he later lived in Carnwadric and attended Shawlands Academy.  Moving south to West Sussex, Wellins studied harmony at Chichester College of Further Education, and clarinet at the RAF School of Music in Uxbridge, west London. 

In 1956-57, he worked with Buddy Featherstonhaugh’s swing band, in a lineup that included the newly arrived young Canadian expat trumpeter Kenny Wheeler. The following year, Wellins worked on US-bound ocean liners, and between 1959 and 1961 worked with two influential British drummer-leaders, Tony Crombie and Tony Kinsey, and on the saxophonist Tommy Whittle’s residency at the Dorchester hotel in London.

Ronnie Scott’s first club, founded in Gerrard Street, central London, in 1959, had begun to attract illustrious American guests by the early 60s, and the West End’s jazz scene was briefly booming. Duncan Lamont’s Nucleus club became what Wellins called his “jazz university”, an after-hours jamming haunt he would visit in the small hours after Whittle’s Dorchester gig. Wellins joined Crombie’s compositionally classy Jazz Incorporated band on its gigs at the Flamingo club, and through it met Stan Tracey - in those days the regular pianist for both Crombie and the Scott club. 

Wellins with Stan Tracey

The pair quickly realised how much they had in common, eloquently realised in 1961 on Wellins’s haunting suite Culloden Moor. Wellins was most famous for a single, exquisite improvised solo on Starless and Bible Black, from the pianist Stan Tracey’s 1965 classic Under Milk Wood – a tenor saxophone passage of birdlike warbles, mournful hoots softly blown into deep spaces, fragmentary motifs that would briefly consolidate into hints of a songlike theme.

             Here’s “Quando Quando Quando” from above album.

                                   

Tracey and Wellins were bonded in life by downbeat humour, in music by a relish for the balancing-point between lyrical warmth and Monk’s enigmatic terseness – and eventually also by the attractions of the jazz world’s easy access to narcotics. Heroin almost destroyed the careers of both of them, but with the support of family and fellow musicians, they came through it to produce enduring work for the next three decades. 

Wellins left London to live in Bognor Regis, West Sussex, with his family, and after a painful personal battle. “The downhill slope… almost broke up my family,” he told Jazz Journal in 1990, referring to his heroin and cocaine use. “My wife Isobel helped me to break free. I got off in 1975, I was 40 years old and finished with it. The affair was over.” He returned to playing and recording – notably with the albums Jubilation (1978) and Dreams Are Free (1979), and often in the company of the pianist Pete Jacobsen. 

He began teaching at the West Sussex Institute of Higher Education in Chichester, toured in 1980 with the trombonist Jimmy Knepper, was a soloist in Charlie Watts’s eclectic improv-to-swing orchestra (1985-86), and worked in the 1990s in big bands led by the clarinettist and soprano saxist Bob Wilber, and with John Barnes and Spike Robinson in Tenor Madness (1996). In the 90s he also made the superb standard-songs album Don’t Worry ’Bout Me, and a memorable Billie Holiday tribute, The Satin Album, and resumed working with Tracey in 1997. 

Wellins also forged fruitful partnerships with the pianists Mark Edwards and Kirk Lightsey, forming a regular trio with the former alongside the bassist Andy Cleyndert and drummer Spike Wells that spurred some of the most poised and imaginative playing of his career. Always believing that his best was still to come, in his 70s Wellins continued to play beautifully in new partnerships, such as his duo with the pianist-composer Kate Williams on Smoke and Mirrors (2012) and in 2014 as principal soloist with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra on a dramatic, mournful and moving revisit to the Culloden Moor suite. 

In 2013, Wellins was the subject of the documentary film Dreams Are Free, directed by Gary Barber, and shown at the Brighton, Chichester and London film festivals that year. Using interview and concert footage, the film traces the rise, fall and redemption of Wellins, showing how he overcame addiction and depression, and rediscovered the desire to play after ten years away from jazz. One of his last big hits before a stroke ended his playing days was the aptly named 2010 album Time Gentlemen Please, featuring a wonderfully eclectic and imaginative set of numbers. Wellins died after a long illness on October 27, 2016, aged 80.  

(Edited from John Fordham obit & Wikipedia)

 

Barry Stanton born 23 January 1941

Barry Stanton (23 January 1941 – 21 January 2018) was a British-Australian rock and roll musician. He performed on pop music programs, Six O'Clock Rock, Bandstand, Johnny O'Keefe Show, Sing Sing Sing,  and Saturday Date. 

Barry John Stanton was born in London on 23 January 1941. The Stanton family—Stella Rose, Carl Leopold, Barry John and Rodney—migrated to Australia in 1948. They settled in the Sydney suburb of Neutral Bay. At the age of 15 Stanton became interested in rock and roll. He left school and worked as apprentice motor mechanic. His early bands included the Boppers and the Bellairs; they played gigs at local dance halls. Stanton provided "some Presley-type singing and guitar-playing." In 1957 he recorded material, which was not released until 1988, issued on his compilation album, 'A Tribute to the King Rare Songs 1957-1965', via Canetoad Records. According to Ainslie Baker of The Australian Women's Weekly, he "has brown eyes, is 6ft. 1in. tall, weighs 13-​1⁄2 stone, likes cars and car-racing, surfing, and football." 

Stanton was talent spotted in 1959 while playing during the interval in between Marlon Brando and James Dean films at Manly's Embassy Theatre, by 2SM radio DJ, Allan Lappan. He was recommended to Johnny O'Keefe who recruited Stanton for a spot on the rocker's TV pop music show, Six O'Clock Rock. He became one of the most popular young male artists of the day. He also appeared regularly on pop, variety TV show, Bandstand. One of the few artists to use his real name, O'Keefe branded him the "Big Boy of Rock" due to his solid physique. 

Stanton signed to O'Keefe and Lee Gordon's label, Leedon Records, in 1960, which issued his debut EP, 'Barry Stanton Sings'. His first single – a cover version of Roy Hamilton's "Don't Let Go" – appeared in April. It was recorded with chorus and orchestra directed by Eddie Cash, Jr. He began touring with other local artists, Digby Richards, Jimmy Little, and Warren Williams. In May to June that year he took part in an interstate tour supporting Johnny O'Keefe and the Dee Jays, Laurel Lea, Booka Hyland, Lonnie Lee, the Sapphires and Ray Hoff. Stanton left the tour in mid-June as he was "too exhausted to sign on for an extra week of engagements." In the following week O'Keefe lost control of his Plymouth Belvedere near Kempsey and was involved in a serious car accident. 

                                   

Stanton's follow-up single, "Don't You Worry 'Bout That", written by O'Keefe, appeared in September 1960. It was well received in most states, reaching #12 on the Sydney music charts. Late in the following year he issued his fourth single, "Beggin's on My Knees", which became his most successful hit when it reached #25 on the national top 40. The track was written by his younger brother, Rod Stanton, who later explained how "One day, strumming on an old guitar given to him by Barry, he asked his brother to have a listen to a fresh composition he was quite happy with. Its potential was immediately recognised by Barry and, perhaps even more importantly, by his producer, O'Keefe." Warren Carr played its ear grabbing tinkling piano. 

Stanton was approached to switch to RCA by New Zealand-born rocker Johnny Devlin, who from late 1963 was the label's Australian A&R manager and house producer. Stanton's first single on the label, "Tribute to the King" was released in 1964. It was written by Devlin as a tribute to Presley, which "consisted of 32 Elvis Presley song titles set to rocking instrumental backing provided by Devlin's backing band The Devils." His next single, "My Little Emmy", which was written by Stanton, was released in July 1965. Stanton undertook interstate tours supporting Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs and Ray Brown & the Whispers. He supported Screaming Lord Sutch's tour in 1964. 

Although only releasing two singles while at RCA, he recorded more material, however after leaving the label in 1966, the recordings were unreleased. According to Australian musicologist, Ian McFarlane, "with the lack of success of his RCA sides, Stanton gave up his rock'n'roll career to work as an electrician." In 1974 he resumed his music career to join O'Keefe and fellow 1960s rockers Ray Brown, Lonnie Lee, Jade Hurley, Johnny Devlin, Dinah Lee and Tony Brady as part of a touring ensemble, The Good Old Days of Rock 'n' Roll. The nostalgia circuit was successful with the tour continuing for four years. In 1978 he issued a single, "City of Armidale / Big Front Door", via the Bunyip label. 

In 1981 Raven Records issued a compilation, split album, 'Rock On!', with "most of Stanton's singles as one half" and the rest from fellow rocker, Johnny Rebb. Stanton's early material, including previously unreleased tracks, was issued as a solo compilation album, 'A Tribute to the King Rare Songs 1957-1965', via Canetoad Records. Concert bookings had become rarer, and Stanton returned to working a day job, as a warehouse manager. He periodically played shows until 2006, when he took a break from showbiz to spend time with his grandchildren. After two years, he performed a comeback concert in Melbourne. Stanton died of renal failure on January 21, 2018, two days short of his 77th birthday. 

(Edited from Wikipedia)

 

Bill Emerson born 22 January 1938

William Hundley Emerson, Jr. (January 22, 1938 – August 21, 2021) was an American five-string banjo player known for being one of the founding members of the original The Country Gentlemen and Emerson & Waldron and considered one of the finest bluegrass banjo players in music history. 

He began playing guitar in 1955 and banjo the following year, which was when he heard a performance by Uncle Bob & the Blue Ridge Partners on a Rockville, MD, radio station. He was so captivated by their sound that he went to the station to meet them, and was asked to join them. A few months later, Emerson joined Buzz Busby & the Bayou Boys. When an auto accident put Busby and some of the bandmembers out of commission, Emerson and bandmate Charlie Waller assembled a new band, the Country Gentlemen, to keep their booking at the Admiral Grill in Bailey's Cross Roads, VA. 

They recorded three singles for Dixie and Starday, including "High Lonesome" b/w "Hey Little Girl." In 1958, Emerson left the Gentlemen to play live gigs with the Stonemans, later playing with Bill Harrell, Jimmy Martin & the Sunny Mountain Boys, and Red Allen & the Kentuckians. In 1963, he appeared on the Jimmy Martin album This World is Not My Home. While playing with Allen, he recorded a few albums as Bill Emerson & His Virginia Mountaineers, including Banjo Pickin' n' Hot Fiddlin' Country Style. 

                                   

In 1965, he left Allen's band and rejoined Jimmy Martin's for two albums. Emerson left again in 1967 and teamed up with Cliff Waldron to form Emerson & Waldron & the Lee Highway Boys. The group recorded three albums for the Rebel label, including Bluegrass Country. He returned to the Country Gentlemen in 1970, playing club dates and recording with them until 1972, when he was hit in the arm during a drive-by shooting as he and the band were leaving the Red Fox Inn in Bethesda, MD. 

He recovered fully and joined the U.S. Navy Band the next year.Emerson's 20-year military stint was spent playing music in Washington, D.C., doing outside session work, and performing with his country/bluegrass band, the Country Current. Beginning in 1988, Emerson recorded two solo albums for Rebel, Home of the Red Fox (1987) and Gold Plated Banjo (1991). He was also honored by Sterling Banjo Works, who issued a Signature Series of banjos ("Bill Emerson Red Fox Model") and gear after him. Emerson released his Reunion album in 1992, which features various lead singers he had worked with over the years, including Jimmy Martin, Charlie Waller, and Tony Rice. 

He finally left the Navy in 1993 and subsequently released a duet album with protégé Wayne Taylor. His recorded output continued with Banjo Man in 1996, and Bill Emerson & the Sweet Dixie Band issued their eponymous Rebel debut in 2007. Emerson and the band returned in January 2010 with Southern (Emerson's sixth album as soloist or bandleader during his half-century career), a 12-track contemporary and traditional bluegrass album on the Rural Rhythm label featuring songs written by the likes of Vince Gill, Chris Hillman, Hazel Dickens, and Marty Stuart. 

Bill Emerson & Sweet Dixie remained a popular bluegrass festival draw as the new millennium's first decade drew to a close. He was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2019. 

Emerson died on August 21, 2021, at the age of 83 from complications from pneumonia. 

Please Note: The bluegrass musician named Bill Emerson is often confused with another country musician named Bill Emerson (known as "Wild Bill Emerson") who was also born in 1938. As a result, bluegrass musician Bill Emerson is frequently incorrectly attributed to songs on various music databases written by Wild Bill Emerson and/or his wife, Martha Jo "Jody" Emerson. 

 (Edited from Rocky52 & Wikipedia)

 

Jimmy Wilson born 21 January 1918

Jimmy Wilson (possibly January 21, 1918, 1921 or 1923 – February 5, 1965 or February 24, 1966) was an American West Coast blues singer, best known for his 1953 hit "Tin Pan Alley". 

Details of Wilson's life are sketchy and uncertain. He may have been born Jimmie Ned Wilson in Gibsland, Louisiana in 1918, or (according to other sources) near Lake Charles, Louisiana a few years later. 

Rising Star Gospel Singers

Jimmy Wilson was never interviewed, and the very little known about him comes from the memories of a couple of musicians who worked with him at various times. He started out singing with a gospel quartet, the Pilgrim Travelers in California and toured the West Coast ,but his first recordings were with the Rising Star Gospel Singers by Bob Geddings in 1946. He switched to R&B at the instigation of west coast producer-songwriter Geddins who began to record him in Oakland in 1951. 

Initially Wilson was with Bob Geddins' Cavaliers, but further recordings were made under Wilson's own name, often accompanied by guitarist Lafayette Thomas. Some of the masters were purchased by Aladdin Records which was based in Los Angeles, and Wilson recorded for Aladdin in 1952 before returning to record for Geddins' Big Town Records in 1953. 

                                   

Most of his records sold well locally, without crossing over to the mainstream. The one exception was Jimmy’s ‘signature song’, the original version of the blues standard ‘Tin Pan Alley’ which reached number 10 on the US Billboard R&B chart in 1953 and helped to establish Geddins as a major figure in West Coast blues. In 1954 he had a local on the subsidiary Rhythm label with “Strangest Blues.” 

Wilson failed to capitalize on the success of "Tin Pan Alley". Jimmy moved away from North California and continued recording in Louisiana, where he recorded for Goldband Records. His 1958 song "Please Accept My Love" was later recorded by B. B. King and Elton Anderson. His last recordings were for Duke Records in Houston in 1961. Wilson became an alcoholic and died on arrival at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Texas on February 24, 1966. Virtually forgotten by the record-buying public, he was buried at Lincoln Memorial Cemetery in Dallas. 

(Edited from Wikipedia, Wirz’ American Music, Jasmine & Acrobat liner notes)

Lucille Dumont born 20 January 1919

Lucille Dumont (January 20, 1919 – July 29, 2016) known as Quebec’s grande dame of chanson, was a pioneering Canadian singer, radio and television host, and vocal educator who played a pivotal role in popularizing the chanson style in Quebec, adapting French art-song traditions to local themes and promoting emerging Quebecois songwriters throughout her seven-decade career. 

Outside the realm of folk music, most popular singers in Quebec at the time imitated American or French singers, and did French or American repertoire. During the first part of her career, Ms. Dumont followed suit, singing chansons that were popular in Paris, and modelling her performance on French stars such as Lucienne Boyer and Lys Gauty. Like them, she sang with expressive diction, a quick vibrato and a melting, lyrical style that could make a simple phrase feel like a caress. 

She was born Lucelle Dumont in Montreal's Centre-Sud, a district which, then as now, knew more than its share of poverty. She was just 16 when she made her broadcast debut. Under her mentor, Léo Le Sieur, an organist and composer who guided her into broadcasting, Ms. Dumont quickly became a star in Quebec. On October 16, 1935, at age 16, Dumont made her professional debut. She sang and acted as host on numerous programs on Montreal radio station CKAC, an early media-convergence play by La Presse. She often performed with the station's own orchestra. Her talents were also showcased through a variety of shows at Radio-Canada, with titles such as Variétés Françaises, Sur les boulevards and Le moulin qui jazz, the title of which riffed on a 1934 hit song for Ms. Gauty. On stage, Ms. Dumont starred in musical revues at Montreal's Monument-National and other theatres. 

                                  

In 1945, she became the first performer of Insensiblement, a chanson by French songwriter Paul Misraki that was later recorded by Jean Sablon, Charles Aznavour and jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. Signing with RCA Victor in 1947, she released dozens of recordings, including Quebec-themed hits like René Tournier's Mon Saint-Laurent, si grand, si grand and her signature song Le ciel se marie avec la mer by Jacques Blanchet, for which she won first prize at the 1957 Concours de la chanson canadienne. 

In 1952, she appeared on Radio-Canada's first TV broadcast, on a program called Le Café des Artistes. A series of regular performing and hosting gigs on TV followed. For four years in the late 1950s, her weekly variety show À la Romance directly followed the Saturday night hockey game, whose colour commentator was her sportscaster husband, Jean-Maurice Bailly. By that time, she had honed her TV performance skills to a captivating degree. She coddled each song with her warm, expressive voice, and beguiled the camera with a smile or a wink in mid-phrase.

At about the same time, she was turning her attention to Quebec chanson, giving a platform in Quebec and abroad to the work of young talents such as Gilles Vigneault, Jacques Blanchet and Stéphane Venne. In 1957, her performance of Blanchet's poetic Le ciel se marie avec la mer won first prize at the Concours de la chanson canadienne. It became her signature song. 

Some of Ms. Dumont's Quebec chansons made proud reference to the province and Montreal in their lyrics and titles. She had lasting success with René Tournier's Mon Saint-Laurent, si grand, si grand and Blanchet's Au parc Lafontaine, a tribute to the historic park in Montreal's Le Plateau-Mont-Royal district. Both were waltzes performed with lavish orchestral arrangements. 

Quebec chanson, with its sophisticated themes and melodic finesse, stood apart from the wave of youth-oriented, beat-heavy music reaching the province from the United States and England in the early 1960s. But chanson as a Quebec creation served as a point of cultural pride, and had an effect on the character of the province's popular music that lingers to this day. Ms. Dumont remained a fixture on Radio-Canada till the mid-seventies, performing and hosting French stars such as Mr. Aznavour and Jacques Brel. In 1968, she opened a studio, Atelier de la Chanson, and continued teaching into old age. 

Known as the "Grande Dame de la Chanson," she performed with a young Céline Dion and Jean-Pierre Ferland on Quebec television in 1989, spanning more than half a century from her debut. She was regularly feted in Quebec as a national treasure. She retired in 1999 and became an Officer of the Order of Canada, and entered l'Ordre national du Québec in 2001. Though she was mainly an interpreter of song, she received a legacy award from the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2006. She died in Montreal on July 29, 2016  at the age of 97. 

(The Globe and Mail & Wikipedia)

 

Horace Parlan born 19 January 1931

Horace Parlan (January 19, 1931 – February 23, 2017) was an American pianist and composer known for working in the hard bop and post-bop styles of jazz. In addition to his work as a bandleader Parlan was known for his contributions to the Charles Mingus recordings Mingus Ah Um and Blues & Roots. 

He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States and was adopted by a minister and his family and was exposed to church music throughout his youth. Parlan was stricken with polio, resulting in the partial crippling of his right hand.

His first piano teacher was not sympathetic, but after seeing classical pianist Vladimir Horowitz in concert in Pittsburgh, Parlan was drawn back to music. He was about 12 when he began to study with James Miller, who also taught another budding Pittsburgh jazz pianist, Ahmad Jamal. Miller encouraged Parlan to develop his left hand, which led to his idiosyncratic style, with his right hand often pointed at a sharp angle toward the keyboard. 

                                   

Parlan studied at the University of Pittsburgh, with an eye toward becoming a lawyer, before deciding to pursue a career in music.  Between 1952 and 1957, he worked in Washington, D.C., with Sonny Stitt. From 1957 to 1959, Parlan was part of a band led by Mingus, the mercurial bassist and composer then at the height of his creativity. He appeared on two of Mingus’s landmark albums, “Blues and Roots” and “Mingus Ah Um,” both from 1959. On the latter recording, Parlan’s driving piano helped some of Mingus’s best-known tunes, including “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat,” “Fables of Faubus,” “Boogie Stop Shuffle” and “Better Git It in Your Soul.” 

Between 1960 and 1963 he recorded seven albums for the Blue Note label, including “Up & Down” and “Speakin’ My Piece,” with such bandmates as guitarist Grant Green and saxophonists Stanley Turrentine and Booker Ervin. Also during the early 1960s, Parlan was in demand as a top sideman .He played with Booker Ervin in 1960 and 1961, then in the Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis-Johnny Griffin quintet in 1962. From 1963 to 1966 Parlan played with Rahsaan Roland Kirk. "The work situation in New York in the late ‘60s, for me at least, was not optimal," said the soft-spoken Parlan in an interview. "I was doing a lot of commercial jobs playing in East Side clubs. I wasn't all that happy." 

As musical tastes changed, he found it harder to make a living in jazz and moved in 1972 to Copenhagen, Denmark, where Gordon, Ben Webster and other expatriate jazz stars then lived. Parlan worked primarily in Europe for the rest of his career. He later settled in the small village of Rude in southern Zealand. In 1974, he completed a State Department tour of Africa with Hal Singer. In 1977, he made a well-received recording of spirituals with saxophonist Archie Shepp, “Goin’ Home,” and the two made several appearances over the next few years at jazz clubs and colleges in the United States. The duo later recorded two more albums. 

While living in Denmark, Parlan frequently recorded for the Copenhagen-based SteepleChase label and became a more prolific composer. He became a Danish citizen in 1995. Filmmaker Don McGlynn made a documentary about Parlan in 2000. That year he also received the 2000 Ben Webster Prize awarded by the Ben Webster Foundation. Describing the obstacles he overcame to become a pianist, Parlan told Jazz Times magazine in 2001: “I was not equipped to speak musically in the manner of [Art] Tatum or [Oscar] Peterson or any of the pianists I admire. I had to find a groove of my own.” 

His final recording, “My Little Brown Book,” appeared in 2007. He lived for years in the countryside with his wife, Norma Parlan. He died February 23, 2017, at a nursing home in Naestved, Denmark, at the age of 86. He had been suffering from multiple ailments, including diabetes and failing eyesight. 

(Edited from Billboard Obit, Wikipedia, AllMusic and All About Jazz)