Don Pullen

Don Gabriel Pullen (December 25, 1941 – April 22, 1995) was an American jazz pianist and organist.

Pullen developed a strikingly individual style throughout his career.

He composed pieces ranging from blues to bebop and modern jazz.

The great variety of his body of work makes it difficult to pigeonhole his musical style.

Pullen was and raised in Roanoke, Virginia, United States.

Growing up in a musical family, he learned the piano at an early age.

A graduate of Lucy Addison High School, Pullen played in the school's band.

He played with the choir in his local church and was heavily influenced by his cousin, Clyde "Fats" Wright, who was a professional jazz pianist.

He took some lessons in classical piano and knew little of jazz.

At this time, he was mainly aware of church music and the blues.

Pullen left Roanoke for Johnson C. Smith University in North Carolina to study for a medical career, but soon he realized that his true vocation was music.

After playing with local musicians and being exposed for the first time to albums of the major jazz musicians and composers, he abandoned his medical studies.

He set out to make a career in music, desirous of playing like Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy.

During the remainder of the 1960s and early 1970s, he played with his own organ trio in clubs and bars, worked as a self-taught arranger for record companies, and accompanied various singers including Arthur Prysock, Irene Reid, Ruth Brown, Jimmy Rushing and Nina Simone.

In 1964, he went to Chicago, Illinois, for a few weeks, where he encountered Muhal Richard Abrams' philosophy of making music.

He then headed for New York, where he was soon introduced to avant-garde saxophonist Giuseppi Logan, who invited Pullen to play piano on his two albums, Giuseppi Logan (ESP, October 1964) and More (ESP, May 1965), both exercises in structured free playing.

Subsequently, Pullen and Milford Graves formed a duo.

Their concert at Yale University in May 1966 was recorded.

They formed their own independent SRP record label (standing for "Self Reliance Project" ) to publish the result as two LPs.

These were the first records to bear Pullen's name, second to Graves'.

Although not greatly known in the United States, these avant-garde albums were well received in Europe, most copies being sold there.

Pullen appeared on no more commercial recordings until 1971 and 1972, when he played organ on three recordings by altoist Charles Williams, one being issued under the title of a Pullen composition, "Trees And Grass And Things".

In 1972, Pullen briefly appeared with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.

Pullen often polarized critics and suffered from two undeserved allegations: the first (despite his grounding in the church and blues) that he was purely a free jazz player and thus unemployable in any other context; the second that he had been heavily influenced by Cecil Taylor or was a clone of Taylor, to whose playing Pullen's own bore a superficial resemblance.

Pullen strenuously denied that he had any link with Taylor, stating that his own style had been developed in isolation before he ever heard of Taylor.

But the assertion of Taylor's influence continued to haunt Pullen to the end of Pullen's life, and persists even to this day.

In 1973 drummer Roy Brooks introduced Pullen to bassist Charles Mingus, and after a brief audition he took over the vacant piano chair in the Mingus group; when a tenor saxophone player was needed, Pullen recommended George Adams; subsequently, Dannie Richmond returned on drums; these men, together with Jack Walrath on trumpet, formed the last great Mingus group.

Being part of the Mingus group and appearing at many concerts and on three Mingus studio recordings, Mingus Moves (1973), Changes One and Changes Two (both 1974), gave great exposure to Pullen's playing and helped to persuade audiences and critics that Pullen was not just a free jazz player.

Two of his own compositions, "Newcomer" and "Big Alice", were recorded on the Mingus Moves session, but "Big Alice" was not released until a CD reissue many years later.

However, musical disagreements with Mingus caused Pullen to leave the group in 1975.

Pullen had always played piano with bass and drums behind him, feeling more comfortable this way, but in early 1975 he was persuaded to play a solo concert in Toronto.

This was recorded as Solo Piano Album (Sackville) and became the first record issued under Pullen's name alone.

Among other pieces, it contains "Sweet (Suite) Malcolm", declared a masterpiece by Cameron Brown, Pullen's long time associate of later years.

There was now growing awareness of Pullen's abilities, but it was the European recording companies that were prepared to preserve them.

In 1975 an Italian record company gave Pullen, George Adams, and Dannie Richmond the opportunity to each make a recording under his own name.

All three collaborated in the others' recordings.

In the same year, Pullen made two further solo recordings in Italy, Five To Go (Horo) and Healing Force (Black Saint), the latter being received with great acclaim.

He became part of the regular seasonal tours of American musicians to Europe, playing in the avant-garde or free mode.

In 2020, Corbett vs. Dempsey released the contents of both albums on a CD titled The Complete Yale Concert, 1966.

Finding little money in playing avant-garde jazz, Pullen began to play the Hammond organ to extend his opportunities for work, transferring elements of his individual piano style to this instrument.