SOUTH SIDE SOUL
JOHN WRIGHT TRIO
SONGWRITER: ESMOND EDWARDS
COUNTRY: U. S.A.
ALBUM: SOUTH SIDE SOUL
LABEL: PRESTIGE
GENRE: JAZZ
YEAR: 1961
John Albert Wright (September 7, 1934 -
December 15, 2017) was an American jazz pianist who was
successful in Chicago,
especially during the 1960s.
John Wright was born in Louisville,
Kentucky in 1934. His family moved to Chicago
in 1936 where his mother, an evangelistic preacher, founded a church at which
he began to play piano by the age of seven. He attended Wendell
Phillips High School and played organ at the
Christian Hope M.B. Baptist Church before enlisting in the military in 1952
where he was stationed in Germany with the 7th Army Special
Services and developed his skills in playing
jazz.
Upon his return to Chicago in 1955, Wright
performed in the local jazz scene in clubs and in 1960 began to record for the
New York jazz label Prestige at the Van Gelder Studio producing a total of five albums for the label between 1960 and
1962.
Wright continued to perform on the Chicago
club scene and worked as a librarian at the Cook County Jail from the mid 1980s, until 1999. In 1994, he recorded a final álbum Wright
Changes & Choices.
In 2008, Wright was inducted into the Wendell
Phillips High School Hall of Fame, and in 2009 he was awarded the Walter Dyett Lifetime
Achievement Award by the Jazz
Institute of Chicago. Wright died in late 2017, and
tribute concerts were performed in his memory at the 2018 Chicago Jazz
Festival and 2018 Hyde Park Jazz Festival.
South Side Soul is the debut album by
jazz pianista John Wright which was recorded in 1960 and released on the Prestige label.
Scott Yanow of Allmusic states,
"John Wright, who is now quite obscure, recorded five albums during
1960-62 that emphasized the soulful side of hard bop. [...] Wright performs seven of
his originals, all of which have something to do with Chicago. [...] Wright
plays soulfully while swinging."
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