Ellis Larkins
Appearances
Ella Fitzgerald's Songs in a Mellow Mood finds the singer in the ideal and intimate company of pianist Ellis Larkins. A precursor to her equally stunning Gershwin set with [more]
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With a wealth of saxophone masters spread across 21 cuts, Indigo's Art of the Saxophone Ballad is an hour-long treatise on the power of reeds to put over a ballad. [more]
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Jazz Memories is a multimedia companion set that features two CDs and a beautiful 72-page book filled with exceptional photography by the brilliant photographer Herman Leonard. [more]
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Its title aside (which suggests that Hoagy Carmichael was a some distant forerunner of Jackson Browne or Dar Williams, a case that would be [more]
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![Ella and Louis [Promo Sound]](/cache/JHS/j1/130x130_j17704oyoc1.jpg)
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With cooperation from the Verve and Columbia Legacy catalogs, the Ken Burns Jazz series on CD individually spotlights the musical excellence of 22 jazz originators whose careers [more]
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Biography
- Born May 15th 1923 in Baltimore, MD
- Died Sep 29th 2002 in Baltimore, MD
Famous for his subtle chord voicings and ability to accompany singers, Ellis Larkins has been in great demand throughout his long career. His parents were musicians (his mother played piano while his father was a violinist) and Larkins was hailed as a prodigy early on, appearing with an orchestra when he was 11. After graduating from the Peabody Conservatory and Juilliard, Larkins was part of Edmond Hall's group in the mid-'40s; recorded with Mildred Bailey, Coleman Hawkins, and Dicky Wells; and then worked regularly at the Village Vanguard and the Blue Angel in New York over a 20-year period. His duet records with Ella Fitzgerald and Ruby Braff in the 1950s are masterpieces in subtlety, and he was also a busy studio player. During the 1960s, Larkins worked with singers Joe Williams, Jane Harvey, Georgia Gibbs, and even Eartha Kitt and Harry Belafonte; since then, Larkins has continued playing in New York clubs with a wide variety of singers. He recorded as a leader for Storyville and Decca in the 1950s, for Halcyon and Black & Blue in the 1970s, had additional duets with Braff for Chiaroscuro, and was featured on a couple of dates for Concord, including a 1992 recital at Maybeck Recital Hall. ~ Scott Yanow, All Music Guide
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