Jazz pianist John Young dies at 86
Pianist John Young, a popular performer in Chicago since the late 1940s, died at South Shore Hospital last Wednesday, April 16. He was 86. A sciatic nerve inflammation, so severe that he couldn’t ride in cars, had caused him to retire in 2005.
Nicknamed Young John Young early in his career, Mr. Young was noted for his lyricism and versatility. “He could play some of the most beautiful passages, and he could rise to any occasion,” said tenor saxophonist Eddie Johnson, with whom Mr. Young played often at Andy’s and at Alexander’s Steaks. “He was an ideal accompanist for singers,” Von Freeman said. “If you name a top singer — like Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, Nancy Wilson, Billie Holiday, Carmen McRae — she played with him. When a singer came to town, she’d ask for him.”
John Merritt Young was born on March 16, 1922, in Little Rock, Ark., the youngest of eight children. He grew up in Chicago and began studying the piano at age 8. A student of noted teacher Walter Dyett at DuSable High School, he was originally influenced by Chicago-based swing pianist and bandleader Earl Hines. Apart from a brief period of service in the U.S. Navy, he spent most of 1942-47 touring with a popular big band, Andy Kirk and His 12 Clouds Of Joy. Mr. Young both played piano and arranged music for the Kirk band.
Beginning in the late 1940s, he was based in Chicago, where he led his own trios, worked with tenor saxophonist Eddie Chamblee (in 1951-55) and accompanied singers. When singer Nancy Wilson asked Mr. Young to tour as her accompanist, he chose instead to stay in Chicago. With his trio he recorded six albums for the Argo, Delmark and Vee-Jay labels. The best-known of them was “Themes and Things” (Argo), which included his well-known version of “Love Theme From ‘Spartacus,’ ” theme song of disk-jockey Sid McCoy’s long-running WCFL all-night show.
Mr. Young’s mastery of the bop idiom, his skill in playing blues, his masterful responsiveness and his subtle showmanship — he often interjected sly, humorous phrases into his solos — served him well in the 1970s and ’80s. Those were the years he played frequently at the Jazz Showcase, accompanying a parade of performers from saxophone stars Gene Ammons and Dexter Gordon to blues singer Big Joe Turner to comic Slim Gailliard. He also played for years in weekly sessions with Von Freeman’s quartet, usually at The Apartment, El Matador, the Enterprise and other south side-clubs, and often at north-side clubs such as Andy’s and the Green Mill. He played on five Von Freeman albums.
Mr. Young made at least 13 appearances at the Chicago Jazz Festival in its first 21 years, often in groups with Eddie Johnson. He played on both of Mr. Johnson’s albums, and during the 1990s they worked together weekly at Alexander’s in the quintet sponsored by the Jazz Unites organization.
Mr. Young was a deacon in the Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church. He is survived by his son Alan and his second wife Jessie, to whom he was married for 53 years. Mr. Young’s visitation will be at 6 tonight[[TUESDAY 4/22]], at the Leak & Sons Funeral Home, 7838 S. Cottage Grove Blvd. His wake will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday at Ebenezer M.B. Church, 4501 S. Vincennes Ave., followed by a memorial service there at 11 a.m.
John Litweiler is a Chicago freelance writer.
