Curtis Counce

Curtis Counce's meteoric career as a leader doesn't diminish his importance and influence on the West Coast jazz scene of the 1950s. Hailing from Kansas City, Missouri, where he was born on January 23, 1926, Curtis Counce studied violin, tuba and double bass before joining Nat Towles' band in Omaha (1941-1944). Moving to California in 1945, he played in the rhythm'n'blues band The Johnny Otis Show, then accompanied Lester Young, Benny Carter, Wardell Gray and Billy Eckstine, while taking lessons with arranger Lyle Murphy. His association with Shorty Rogers between 1953 and 1955 made Curtis Counce a highly sought-after session bassist on the West Coast, as evidenced by his collaborations with Herb Geller, Maynard Ferguson, Jimmy Giuffre, Max Roach, Clifford Brown, Shelly Manne, Teddy Charles, Chet Baker and Art Pepper or Illinois Jacquet. This position enabled him to begin a career as a leader, and on his return from a European tour with Stan Kenton, he formed a quintet with Harold Lang (saxophone), Jack Sheldon (trumpet), Carl Perkins (piano) and Frank Butler (drums). The October 1956 sessions in Los Angeles for the Contemporary label resulted in the album The Curtis Counce Group, renamed Landslide after its title track and followed in 1957 by You Get More Bounce with Curtis Counce! However, the death of Carl Perkins on March 17, 1958, just three months after the sessions for Carl's Blues (released in 1960), affected the bassist, who replaced him with Elmo Hope on Exploring the Future (1958), released on the Dootone label. This last period of the quintet also saw Gerald Wilson and Rolf Ericson alternate on trumpet. Still in demand as an accompanist, by Buddy DeFranco, Johnny Otis ("Willie and the Hand Jive", 1958) and Benny Carter during an Australian tour, Curtis Counce led a trio on his return to Small's Paradise West in Los Angeles. Struck down by a heart attack mid-concert, he died on July 31, 1963 at the age of 37. The double bassist appeared in the films Carmen Jones (Otto Preminger, 1954), St. Louis Blues (Allen Reisner, 1958) and The Five Pennies (Melville Shavelson, 1959). In 1989, previously unreleased tracks from the quintet sessions were unearthed for the album Sonority, and in 2007 the Gambit label released the retrospective Complete Studio Recordings: The Master Takes.

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