ジュニア・マンス (Junior Mance)

Junior Mance
Julian Clifford Mance, Jr. (born in Evanston, Illinois, October 10, 1928), aka Junior Mance, is an American jazz pianist and composer.

As a child, Mance was taught piano by his father, a stride and boogie-woogie pianist. He began playing professionally when he was ten years old. He spent two years at Roosevelt College in Chicago, leaving in 1947 to join Gene Ammons' band, where he began his recording career. Mance worked in Ammons' band during 1947-1949. He then worked with Lester Young for a year and then rejoined Ammons before being drafted into the U.S. Army in 1951. He played in the 36th Army Band in Fort Knox, Kentucky, where he served with Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, Nat Adderley, and Curtis Fuller, who would go on to become notable jazz musicians.

After his discharge from the Army in 1953, Mance worked as a sideman and accompanist with musicians such as Dinah Washington, Cannonball Adderley, and Dizzy Gillespie before recording his first album as a leader and forming his own trio in 1961. To date he has recorded over thirty albums, for labels such as Verve, Jazzland, Riverside, Capitol, Atlantic, Milestone, Polydor, Inner City, JSP, Nilva, Sackville, Bee Hive, and others.

Since 1988 he has been a member of the faculty of the Jazz and Contemporary Music Program at the New School University in New York City.

In 1997, Junior Mance was inducted into The International Jazz Hall of Fame...
(Wikipedia: Junior Mance)