Larry Young
A true innovator on the Hammond B3, Young took a different musical path than any of the other organ masters of his time: Although he started out drawing his major influences from the work of Jimmy Smith and the gospel and blues elements that other players employed, but eventually turned to a more complex, modal approach to the organ with sophisticated harmonic and chordal structure
Larry Young was born on October 7, 1940, and hails from Newark, New Jersey. His background includes study of both classical and jazz music on the piano, but had a natural family bond with the organ. Larry Young, Senior, his father, was an organist and was the first major musical influence on his son. The father, moreover, provided an organ in the family home so that Larry Young, Junior, who had studied piano, could gravitate easily and at his own pace to the organ. In his teen years, Young was relatively inactive musically; but a reawakened interest in the organ, encouraged by his father, propelled Young into music in 1958. After a rhythm and blues apprenticeship, Young gained wider experience with Lou Donaldson; worked around New York and New Jersey with Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley and Tommy Turrentine, among others; and then began heading his own units.
He recorded his first sides for Prestige in 1960 with the offering “Testifying,” followed up with “Young Blues,” the same year, then into “Groove Street,” in ’62. He jumped over to the Blue Note label, and in ’64 put out “Into Somethin.” Young's premier album is thought to be Unity, with Joe Henderson, Woody Shaw, and Elvin Jones, which came out in 1965. This is considered to be his best outing, and still holds up as a hard bop organ classic. Young’s work for Blue Note (as both a leader and a sideman) was compiled for Mosaic's limited-edition six- CD box set “The Complete Blue Note Recordings.”
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- In Paris: The ORTF Recordings by Mark Corroto
My Blue Note Obsession
Album Review
- Into Something by Greg Simmons
- Unity by Greg Simmons
- Of Love and Peace by Eddie Becton
- Of Love and Peace by John Kelman
- Mother Ship by Germein Linares
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Jazz Musician of the Day: Larry Young
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Jazz Musician of the Day: Larry Young
October 07, 2016
Jazz Musician of the Day: Larry Young
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October 06, 2015
Jazz Musician of the Day: Larry Young
October 07, 2010
Jazz Musician of the Day: Larry Young
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Jazz Musician of the Day: Larry Young
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Manager of the Late Larry Young and Grant Green Touring Jazz Radio...
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