Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,889

This is the grave of Wynton Kelly.

Born in 1931 in Brooklyn, Kelly grew up in a Jamaican immigrant family. His family had a piano and he started playing with it at the age of 4. He was pretty good at it and ended up in high school at the High School of Music & Art. He started his professional career in R&B bands as a kid. Ray Abrams hired him in 1946 and it didn’t take long for people to get Kelly in the studio to work with them. That began with Hal Singer, who brought Kelly in to play on “Cornbread” in 1948, which went to #1 on the R&B charts. His first recorded solos came the next year in cuts with the singer Babs Gonzales. He played with quite a few reasonably big names on the R&B scene over the next few years.

But Kelly’s real love was jazz and it was there that he would become famous. His first recordings as a bandleader came in 1951 with his album Piano Interpretations, a rather heady title for a kid making his debut. This was a jazz trio album released by Blue Note, which gives you a sense of how he was already a respected player. It didn’t do a lot, but whatever, he was so young and his reputation was rising. Dinah Washington shortly thereafter hired him as her pianist and that obviously was a big step in his career. Lester Young and Dizzy Gillespie both came calling in 1952 and he played and recorded with both legends that year.

Kelly was a man on the rise. But then the Army came calling. He got drafted. But the Army didn’t have much use in sending a good piano player to the front lines of the Korean War. Nope, he was placed into Army bands. At first, most of the band he was in was white, but working with his fellow jazz player and Black musician Duke Pearson, he convinced the Army to allow a Black band. Kelly became musical director. He was discharged in 1954 and returned to his professional career. Washington and Gillespie immediately hired him for their tours. He worked with Charles Mingus in these years too. He could work in big bands or small combos without any problem, which was not the case for everyone. He really became arguably the most important session pianist in the late 50s. He played on so many albums. Blue Note brought him in to play on Sonny Rollins’ debut album, as well as that of Johnny Griffin. He is the pianist on the original recording of Billie Holiday’s “Lady Sings the Blues.” He was in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers for a time.

Let me give you a sense of just how important Kelly was in these years. In April 1957, Kelly recorded with Blakey on the latter’s Theory of Art album in a big band format. Four days later, he was recording with Lee Morgan and others on Johnny Griffin’s A Blown’ Session. Three days after that day, he recorded with Gillespie. A few days after that, he was recording with Clark Terry. He could also play bass. Back in high school, his teachers tried to push him into the bass, which he resisted but he could play. So he was hanging around a recording for Abbey Lincoln. Paul Chambers was the bassist for that session. But he got so drunk that he couldn’t play and Kelly played on those recordings instead since he was around and good enough.

This kind of production was normal. The list from 1958 is about the same as 57–basically everyone. All of this led Kelly to what he’s really know for today, his work with Miles Davis. Now, Red Garland was the normal pianist for Davis. That lasted until Miles heard Kelly play live. He fired Garland on the spot. We all know what a kind and gentle human Miles was, so totally out of character there….Anyway, this does demonstrate the extent to which Kelly really was the session pianist of the era. Not like Garland was some sort of slouch! Kelly was the pianist on Miles albums beginning with Kind of Blue in 1959. Quite a debut in the band there! He remained with the band through the 1963 recording of Someday My Prince Will Come. So these include some of the great all-time jazz recordings. Now, he’s only on one track on Kind of Blue–“Freddie Freeloader,” because Davis had actually written that album with Bill Evans in mind and who can blame him for that. But it was Kelly who went on tour. John Coltrane later told McCoy Tyner that Miles would just walk off the stage to watch Kelly in awe during the latter’s solos. Philly Joe Jones would later say,  Kelly “puts down flowers behind a soloist. He never wanted to steal in. He just put together the right things.”

Miles didn’t tour all that often really, so his musicians had plenty of time for other gigs. During these years, Kelly played on Cannonball Adderley Quartet in Chicago and Paul Chambers’ Go. He was on Wayne Shorter’s debut, Introducing Wayne Shorter. Kelly had hired Shorter for his own band, which was never his biggest gig, but still, everyone wanted to play with the great pianist. He is also the pianist on Coltrane’s “Naima,” off his classic album Giant Steps. He did some albums with Wes Montgomery too.

Kelly finally left Davis’ band in 1963. He started a new trio with Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb. They recorded. But Kelly’s star was dimming. New pianists such as Herbie Hancock were getting more attention. Kelly had become a prodigious drinker. His trio did play around plenty in the 60s. George Wein was a big fan, so he brought the band to Newport Jazz and on Wein-sponsored tours of Japan. They recored with Joe Henderson. But by the late 60s, Kelly was barely working anymore. His last recording came in 1970, on a Dexter Gordon session.

Kelly had health problems that his drinking did not help. Epilepsy was one. He was in Toronto in 1971 to play a gig with George Reed and Herb Marshall. He was just old beyond his years thanks to the drinking and other health problems. He called up and said he wasn’t feeling good. Someone went to his hotel room. By the time they got there, he was dead. Kelly was 39 years old. He had no money or assets.

Let’s listen to some Wynton Kelly.

Well, if that doesn’t start your day off right, I don’t know what would.

Wynton Kelly is buried in Long Island National Cemetery, East Farmingdale, New York.

If you would like this series to visit some of the other jazz greats who played with Kelly, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Total donations to the grave series in May 2025 are $5. So you know, not great! Help a graver out here if you want to see this series continue! Paul Chambers is in Brooklyn and Wes Montgomery is in Indianapolis. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.