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OBITUARY 

Walter Bishop, 70, Jazz Pianist By BEN RATLIFF   NEW YORK -- Walter Bishop Jr., a jazz pianist who recorded with Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and others, died on Saturday at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Manhattan. He was 70 and lived in Manhattan.   The cause was a heart attack, said his sister, Marian Jeffries.   Bishop was raised in lower Harlem; his father, Walter Bishop Sr., was a popular songwriter who was friends with Fats Waller, Eubie Blake and other entertainers. As a teen-ager, Bishop grew up in a clique of musicians centered on Harlem's Sugar Hill neighborhood, which included pianist Kenny Drew, saxophonist Sonny Rollins and drummer Art Taylor. He dropped out of high school and joined a band that played in Harlem dance halls.   He spent two years in the Army Air Corps and was back in Manhattan in 1947. He gravitated to Minton's, where the Monday night jam sessions provided opportunities for young Harlem musicians to learn the sophisticated language of be-bop.   Pianist Bud Powell took a powerful hold on his imagination with a terse, punching style of accompaniment behind other musicians and his flowing, tenacious lines over borrowed chord changes. Bishop's playing would always reflect Powell's influence; later, he would become particularly known for holding back on the beat, a device that added tension to the music.   He joined drummer Art Blakey's 17 Messengers, a big band that soon splintered; Bishop made his first recording, in 1949, with Blakey's quartet. He also played with saxophonist Eddie Davis during this period, and recorded with Stan Getz and Wild Bill Moore.   The young Bishop was eager to play with Parker, and when Parker's steady- working quintet disbanded in 1951, Bishop was one of the musicians he often used until Parker's death in 1955.   Bishop weaved in and out of music as a full-time career during the 1950s, making recordings with Miles Davis, Oscar Pettiford and Kai Winding, among others.   It wasn't until the 1960s that Bishop started making recordings under his own name. He studied with the composer Hall Overton at Julliard toward the end of the 1960s, and in the 1980s, he taught at the University of Hartford and became a common presence in New York's jazz clubs and festivals.   He developed a late interest in writing his memories in verse, and he was known to recite rhyming poems on the bandstand about his lessons and experiences in jazz.   Bishop is survived by his wife, Keiko; his mother, Enid Bishop of Manhattan, and two sisters, Ms. Jeffries of Long Island City, N.Y., and Beverly Freeman of West Hempstead, N.Y.  Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company       Obituary    Walter Bishop, Jr.: Oct. 4, 1927 - January 24, 1998   by Bret Primack     Walter Bishop, Jr., a pianist, composer and educator who played and recorded with Charlie Parker, Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis and Jackie McLean, as well as leading his own groups, died on Saturday, January 24th after a long battle with cancer. He was 70.  Born in N Y on October 4, 1927, Bishop's father  was a songwriter and colleague of Fats Waller and he encouraged his son to play the piano at an early age. By the time he was a teenager, Bishop was a regular at Harlem's Minton's Playhouse where nightly jam sessions, which included Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk, were the proving grounds for a new jazz genre, bebop. Bishop soon joined the sessions and became a full-fledged bebopper, along with his neighborhood buddies Sonny Rollins and Jackie McLean.   A disciple of Bud Powell, Bishop played in Art Blakey's first Jazz Messengers, a seventeen piece big band that performed in New York in the late 40s but really jumped into the limelight when he joined Charlie Parker in 1951. Bishop played and recorded with Bird until his untimely death in 1955, on Parker's later Verve sessions as well with Bird's Quintet and Bird with Strings.   During the 50s, Bishop also worked with Miles Davis, recording with the trumpeter on the seminal 1951 Dig session, which included McLean, Rollins, and Blakey. And in 1953, he returned to the studio with Miles and Rollins for a date that featured Charlie Parker on tenor and produced "Serpent's Tooth."   Featured as the pianist with the popular Monday night jam sessions at Birdland in the late 50s, Bishop formed his own group in 1960, with bassist Jimmy Garrison who would later become a member of the John Coltrane Quartet. During the period, Bishop also played and recorded with Oscar Pettiford, Jackie McLean, Paul Gonzalves, Curtis Fuller, Paul Gonzalves, and Terry Gibbs.   In the late 60s, he moved at LA where he played with Supersax and Blue Mitchell, as well as studying with Lyle Spud Murphy and recording for the Black Jazz label. Returning to New York in 1974, he studied with Hall Overton at Julliard and then formulated his own harmonic theory, A Study in Fourths. In the 70s, he worked with Clark Terry's big band and Quintet, Junior Cook and Bill Hardman's Quintet, and also led his own group, which included two of his discoveries, bassist Marcus Miller and drummer Kenny Washington.   In the 80s, with the help of his lifelong friend Jackie McLean, he started teaching at the University of Hartford. Bishop also discovered a talent for poetry and began to incorporate his witty, insightful poems ("Max the Invincible Roach," "Thelonious and the Keyboard Bugs") into his performances. In his last decade, he regularly toured Europe and Japan and also put together a revised Bird with Strings ensemble which included South African alto saxophonist Harold Jefta playing transcriptions of Parker's solos. The group played at last year's Charlie Parker Memorial Festival in New York's Tompkins Square Park.   Walter Francis Bishop, Jr. leaves his wife, Keiko, his mother, Mrs. Walter Bishop of New York, and two sisters, Marion and Beverly.                     Selected Walter Bishop, Jr. Discography:                     with Charlie Parker:                     The Cole Porter Songbook, Swedish Schnapps                     with Miles Davis:                     Dig!, Miles Davis and the Jazz Giants,                     Collector's Items                     with Jackie McLean:                     Capuchin Swing, Swing Swang Swung                     with Ken McIntrye/Eric Dolphy:                     Looking Ahead                     as leader:                     The Walter Bishop, Jr. Trio/1965                     Milestones                     What's New                     Midnight Blue copyright ©1998 N2K Inc. copied from  Jazz Central Station

 

 

BIOGRAPHY

Bishop began playing piano as a child, encouraged by his father, a Jamaican songwriter whose Swing, Brother, Swing was recorded by, among others, Billie Holiday with Count Basie. During the '40s Bishop's musical direction was dictated by his interest in the work of Bud Powell and he played with numerous small groups, including those led by Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Oscar Pettiford. A period of drug addiction interrupted Bishop's career in the '50s, but the following decade proved successful both musically and in terms of conquering his habit. He worked with Curtis Fuller and also led his own small groups, with which he recorded. He resumed his musical studies too, and after relocating in Los Angeles at the end of the '60s he took up teaching. In the late '70s he was back on the east coast, playing and teaching. Rarely performing outside the New York area, and with only a few recordings that fully demonstrate his skills, Bishop remains largely unknown to the wider jazz audience, despite being held in high regard by his fellow musicians. He is the author of a book on jazz theory.      Music Central '96

 

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