Jul 22, 2025 10:58 AM
Pianist, Educator Hal Galper Dies at 87
Hal Galper, a pianist, composer and arranger who enjoyed a substantial performing career but made perhaps a deeper…
Emmet Cohen is set to issue his first album on Mack Avenue, Future Stride, Jan. 29.
(Photo: Taili Song Roth)Emmet Cohen’s latest album, Future Stride, works to encompass the bounty of recorded jazz history.
Cohen, who in 2019 won the American Pianists Association Competition, taps bassist Russell Hall and drummer Kyle Poole for a take of “Dardanella”—a song popularized by bandleader Ben Selvin in a 1919 recording—which premieres below.
“Our version of ‘Dardanella’ is a modern take on the 20th-century gem, pioneered by the stride masters, such as Art Tatum and Willie ‘The Lion’ Smith,” Cohen said in a press release. “The form and organization here display a natural and free progression; an exploration of possibilities which exist when three people think, breathe and feel as a single unit.”
Saxophonist Melissa Aldana and trumpeter Marquis Hill also appear on Future Stride, which is set for release Jan. 29 on the Mack Avenue imprint. DB
Galper was often regarded as an underrated master of his craft.
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Hal Galper, a pianist, composer and arranger who enjoyed a substantial performing career but made perhaps a deeper…
Chuck Mangione on the cover of the May 8, 1975, edition of DownBeat.
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“What I got from Percy was the dignity of playing the bass,” Buster Williams said of Percy Heath.
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Buster Williams, who at the age of 83 has been on the scene for 65 years, had never done a Blindfold Test. The first…
