Jazz Articles about Grant Simpson

Grant Simpson: Stride and True

by Robert R. Calder
March 5, 2007

Grant Simpson hits the piano cleanly, and he sounds like he hits it hard. He mentions the “ever-present dry wit" of Dick Wellstood when introducing a performance of Wellstood's “Dollar Dance," whose composer called it “a distant relative" of Jelly Roll Morton's “Perfect Rag."

Though it's necessary to mention Wellstood's likely influence on Simpson's slowish tempo through much of the opener, James P. Johnson's “One Hour"--and Simpson's central commitment to Harlem stride piano--he emulates Morton by making a priority of ...