Mal Waldron

Malcolm Earl "Mal" Waldron (August 16, 1925 December 2, 2002) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger. He started playing professionally
in New York in 1950, after graduating from university.
In the following dozen years or so Waldron led his own
bands and played for those led by Charles Mingus, Jackie
McLean, John Coltrane, and Eric Dolphy, among others. During Waldrons period as house pianist for Prestige
Records in the late 1950s, he appeared on dozens of albums and composed for many of them, including writing
his most famous song, "Soul Eyes", for Coltrane. Waldron was often an accompanist for vocalists, and was
Billie Holiday's regular accompanist from April 1957 until her death in July 1959.

In 1943, after school and having enrolled at university,

Waldron was called up by the army, and was based at
West Point, in New York.[4][6] This allowed him to listen
to the greats of jazz in clubs on 52nd Street and elsewhere
in the city.[4] After two years in the army,[3] he returned as
a student to Queens College in New York, where he studied under composer Karol Rathaus[4] and made the nal
decision to switch from saxophone to piano.[7] This decision was inuenced in part by hearing Charlie Parker's
virtuoso speed on saxophone,[5] and by not having the
extroverted personality Waldron thought necessary for
that instrument.[3] Not yet a professional musician, he received money through the G.I. Bill and continued to live
with his parents.[4] After obtaining a B.A. in music in
and
A breakdown caused by a drug overdose in 1963 left 1949, Waldron worked for a short time in rhythm
[8]
blues
bands,
including
with
Big
Nick
Nicholas.
Waldron unable to play or remember any music; he regained his skills gradually, while redeveloping his speed
of thought. He left the U.S. permanently in the mid1960s, settled in Europe, and continued touring interna- 2 Later life and career
tionally until his death.
In his 50-year career, Waldron recorded more than 100
albums under his own name and more than 70 for other
band leaders. He also wrote for modern ballet, and composed the scores of several feature lms. As a pianist,
Waldrons roots lay chiey in the hard bop and post-bop
genres of the New York club scene of the 1950s, but with
time he gravitated more towards free jazz. He is known
for his dissonant chord voicings and distinctive later playing style, which featured repetition of notes and motifs.

2.1 Early career in New York

Waldron went on to work with Ike Quebec in New York
in 1950 and made his recording debut with the saxophonist in 1952.[9] They played at Caf Society Downtown on
Mondays for six or seven months, which helped Waldron
gain exposure and more work.[5] Waldron worked frequently with Charles Mingus from 1954 to 1956, as part
of the latters jazz composers workshop.[7] He was pianist
on several Mingus recordings, including Pithecanthropus
Erectus, which was a key development in the movement
towards freer collective improvisation in jazz.[10]:1001
In 1955, Waldron worked with Lucky Millinder and
Lucky Thompson.[7] Waldron formed his own band in
1956, which consisted of Idrees Sulieman (trumpet),
Gigi Gryce (alto saxophone), Julian Euell (bass), and
Arthur Edgehill (drums).[9][11] This band recorded Waldrons rst release as a leader, Mal-1, in November
of that year.[11] Waldron was Billie Holiday's regular
accompanist from April 1957 until her death in July
1959,[9] including for the all-star television broadcast The
Sound of Jazz.[8]

Early life

Mal Waldron was born in New York City on August 16,

1925,[1] to West Indian immigrants.[2] His father was a
mechanical engineer who worked on the Long Island Rail
Road.[3] The family moved to Jamaica, Long Island when
Mal was four years old.[4] Waldrons parents discouraged
his initial interest in jazz, but he was able to maintain it
by listening to swing on the radio.[2] Waldron had classical piano lessons from the age of around seven until he
was about 16.[5] He then became inspired to play jazz on
tenor saxophone when he heard Coleman Hawkins' 1939
recording of "Body and Soul", but bought an alto saxophone, unable to aord a tenor.[2] He played alto for local
bands that performed for dances, bar mitzvahs, Spanish
weddings, frequently taking over the pianists role when
other musicians took their solos.[5]:70

Waldron played on numerous sessions for Prestige

Records from 1956 to 1958,[9] as he was the house pianist with the label, a position he acquired after being introduced to Prestige by saxophonist Jackie McLean.[5][8]
Waldron appeared on several McLean-led recordings,
and was praised by critic John S. Wilson for these performances as being a consistently interesting and inventive
1

2 LATER LIFE AND CAREER

pianist, who apparently can create fresh and provocative

ideas even in the midst of a shrilling bedlam.[12] Other
leaders he worked under at Prestige included Gene Ammons, Kenny Burrell, John Coltrane, and Phil Woods.
Waldron often used his own arrangements and compositions for the Prestige sessions, of which his most famous,
"Soul Eyes", written for Coltrane,[13] became a widely
recorded jazz standard following its initial appearance on
the 1957 album Interplay for 2 Trumpets and 2 Tenors.[14]
He composed at night at home in St. Albans between allday recording sessions, and in a car travelling to and from
the studio in Hackensack.[5]:7172 Waldron estimated that
he composed more than 400 pieces of music during his
time with Prestige.[4]
After Holiday died, Waldron played with vocalist Abbey
Lincoln and her husband, drummer Max Roach.[7]
Around this time, Waldrons playing on his own recordings became darker, featuring emotional shifts and variations in minor keys.[10] In 1961, Waldron played in
Eric Dolphy and Booker Little's quintet, a promising
combination that ended when Little died that year, aged
23.[10]:3823
In addition to writing for his own band and those led by
others, Waldron wrote and arranged for early play-along
records that were published by Music Minus One.[8][15]
Some of these recordings on which Waldron played were
released under his name. He also wrote scores for modern ballet in the 1950s and started writing lm scores in
the following decade.[7] His writing for the lm The Cool
World (released in 1964) was described in The Oxford
Companion to Jazz as one of the rst attempts to stress improvisation rather than composition in a jazz-based lm
score.[16]

his own records.[18] His recovery as a musician continued for another two years, as his speed of thought was
still too slow over that period to allow genuine improvisation: I worked out my solos in advance and played
what I had written out, until gradually all my faculties
returned.[18]:170

2.3 Career after move to Europe

From the mid-1960s on, Waldron spent a lot of time
in Europe: Paris, Rome, Bologna, and Cologne, before
moving permanently to Munich in 1967.[9] Waldron originally moved to France when lm director Marcel Carn
asked him if he wanted to compose the score for Three
Rooms in Manhattan in New York or Paris; Waldrons
1958 experience touring Europe with Holiday made the
decision an easy one.[5]:7273 Waldrons stated reasons for
settling in Europe were his disgust with the erce, cutthroat competition, just to get a job and the fact that
black musicians were paid less than their white counterparts in the U.S.[19] The 1965 score for Three Rooms in
Manhattan was followed by one for the American lm
Sweet Love, Bitter in 1967.[7][9] Waldron also composed
for theater (Amiri Baraka's The Slave and Dutchman),
television, and short lms.[7] In Europe around this time
he played with other expatriates, including Ben Webster
and Kenny Clarke.[7]

Waldrons 1969 album Free at Last was the rst release

on the ECM label. This recording was an example of
Waldron playing, in his words, rhythmically instead of
soloing on chord changes.[10] Two years later, another
Waldron recording session was the rst for another label
that became rmly established Enja Records.[20] In the
early 1970s, he collaborated with the German avant-rock
band Embryo on two albums, Steig Aus! and Rocksession.
2.2 Breakdown and recovery
Waldron also wrote the score for the 1972 French lm
In 1963 Waldron had a major breakdown caused by a George Who?[21]
heroin overdose. He recounted in 1998 that a lot of mu- Waldron became popular in Japan, rst playing there in
sicians in the 1950s and 1960s felt that taking drugs was 1970,[7] after being invited by Swing Journal following
necessary for career progression.[17] The police assumed the success of one of his earlier recordings.[22] From 1975
they were all doing it, according to Waldron:
he made visits to the U.S., mostly playing solo piano from
The police would stop the musicians and
search us as we came out of the clubs after
work. We had to turn our pockets inside out.
After a while, the musicians thought ... well, if
you have the name you might as well have the
game. Eventually, I overdosed. I couldn't remember my own name. My hands were trembling, I couldn't play the piano. I needed shock
treatments and a spinal tap to bring me back.[17]
Waldron always felt that he had to return to playing, but
this was a slow process. About a year after the overdose,
his physical recovery was sucient to allow him to start
relearning his skills, which he did partly by listening to

the late 1970s to early 1980s. Other formats included a

quartet with Joe Henderson, Herbie Lewis, and Freddie
Waits; another quartet with Charlie Rouse, Calvin Hill
and Horacee Arnold; a trio with Hill and Arnold; and
a duo with Cameron Brown.[9] Waldron performed and
recorded extensively throughout Europe and Japan. In the
early 1980s he reported that he allotted agents in France,
Germany, Italy and Scandinavia a month each per year of
his time, but set aside two months for Japan.[13]
During the 1980s and 1990s Waldron worked with Steve
Lacy, notably in pianosoprano duets playing their own
compositions as well as Thelonious Monk's. Duet albums
with others were also prominent in Waldrons recordings
from the early 1980s.[8] This setting was chosen partly for
economic reasons, but mainly for artistic ones, Waldron

3
stated: jazz is like a conversation. [...] So to do this face
to face, it is more direct, stronger and more accurate.[18]
A further lm score was written for Japanese director
Haruki Kadokawa's Tokyo Blues in 1986.[6]

of a single and simple motif as opposed to linear and

melodic improvisation gave a heavy and dark color to his
sound. One facet of his playing was, according to The
Penguin Guide to Jazz, likened to American minimalism:
[9] a slow accretion of almost subliminal harmonic and rhythWaldron moved from Munich to Brussels in the 1990s,
pile up until the music seems ready to
stating that, in Belgium, nobody stands on the cor- mic shifts steadily
[10]:1455
overbalance.
ner waiting for the lights to change. In Germany they
watch the lights instead of the cars. The lights never As an accompanist to vocalists Holiday, Lincoln, Lee
killed anybody.[17] From the mid-1990s, Waldron trav- and others, Waldron was described by critic and musician
eled to the U.S. less frequently, put o by no longer be- Alyn Shipton as one of the most sublime accompanists
ing allowed to smoke in many of the jazz clubs there.[14] in jazz.[18]:172
Around the same period, Waldron recorded several al- Waldrons own assessment of his style was that it was
bums with vocalist Jeanne Lee. Two of his nal record- partly a reection of his personality: Its part of my perings were duets with saxophonists who tended, as he sonality to be very economical with what I have and to
did, to play in melodic and free forms: David Murray use it in all variations before I move to the next set of
and Archie Shepp.[23][24] After some years of indier- notes.[19] He acknowledged the inuences of Holiday
ent health, Waldron, a heavy smoker, was diagnosed with (on his conception of space and playing behind the beat),
cancer in 2002. He continued to perform until his death Mingus (for the importance of individuality), and Roach
on December 2 of that year in a hospital in Brussels, due (on the value of time signatures other than the usual 4/4),
to complications resulting from the cancer.[25] He was as well as pianists Duke Ellington, Monk, Powell and Art
77, and had played his nal concert in Lille two weeks Tatum.[19]
earlier.[25]

Personal life

Waldron married twice and had seven children[1] two

with his rst wife and ve with the second.[17] Billie Holiday was godmother to his rst daughter.[26] Waldrons
rst wife, Elaine, occasionally sang on his recordings.[27]
His second wife was Japanese, and they owned and let
several apartments in Japan.[17] Combining birthday celebrations with a tour, Waldron took both families exwife, wife, seven children and two grandchildren on his
three-week tour of Japan that coincided with his seventieth birthday.[17] Waldrons mother died in 1979.[13] He
could speak English, French, German, and Japanese.[17]

5 Inuence
Waldron has inuenced later generations of pianists. Examples are Matthew Shipp[29] and Stanley Cowell.[30] Another, Ethan Iverson, describes Waldron as one of his
biggest inuences, and reports having imitated most aspects of the older mans style during his own musical development, through listening to Waldrons recordings.[15]
Waldron contributed more personally to Ran Blake's
progress: he was Blakes teacher for a time, helping him to improve his rhythmic exibility and idea
development.[31][32]

6 Discography
4

Playing style

When he rst played with Mingus, Waldron was a follower of Horace Silver's style, which used added chords
and passing notes,[28] as well as Bud Powell's, which
contained many runs.[4] Mingus encouraged him to strip
away these things and concentrate on basic and altered
harmonies.[28] Before his breakdown, Waldron played in
a lyrical way, but after it, I couldn't nd that lyricism inside myself any more, so I became a very angular player,
becoming more like Thelonious Monk in playing and
composition style.[18]
From the time he moved to Europe, Waldron played
mostly in a free style, while being able to play in a more
traditional style when the audience or situation required
it.[13] He used thick chords in the lower bass register;
his emphasis on weight, texture and frequent repetition

Main article: Mal Waldron discography

7 References
[1] Fordham, John (January 28, 2003) Mal Waldron. The
Guardian.
[2] Lock, Graham (1994) Chasing the Vibration: Meetings
with Creative Musicians. pp. 3637. Stride Publications.
[3] Davis, Francis (October 13, 1990) Mal Waldron Is Coming to the Bride. The Inquirer.
[4] WKCR broadcast (August 23, 2001) Transcribed at
Panken, Ted (August 15, 2011) Two Interviews with Mal
Waldron on the 86th Anniversary of His Birth. Transcript of WKCR radio interview. Accessed July 9, 2013.

[5] Stokes, W. Royal (2002) Living the Jazz Life: Conversations with Forty Musicians About Their Careers in Jazz.
Oxford University Press.
[6] Mal Waldron.
(December 13,
news.scotsman.com Accessed July 2, 2013.

2002)

[7] Feather, Leonard and Gitler, Ira (2007) The Biographical

Encyclopedia of Jazz. p. 670. Oxford University Press.
[8] Novod, Eric Waldron, Mal (Malcolm Earl)". jazz.com
Accessed July 2, 2013.
[9] Doerschuk, Robert L. and Kernfeld, Barry The New Grove
Dictionary of Jazz (2nd ed.). Waldron, Mal. Grove
Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University
Press. Accessed May 12, 2013. (Subscription required.)
[10] Cook, Richard and Morton, Brian (2008) The Penguin
Guide to Jazz Recordings. Penguin.
[11] Todd, Jim Mal-1: Review. AllMusic. Accessed July 9,
2013.
[12] Wilson, John S. (1959) The Collectors Jazz: Modern. p.
178. J.B. Lippincott.
[13] Wilson, John S. (November 13, 1981) Mal Waldron
Back in a Solo Concert The New York Times. p. C17.
[14] Ratli, Ben (December 06, 2002) Mal Waldron, 77,
Composer of the Jazz Ballad 'Soul Eyes". The New York
Times.
[15] Iverson, Ethan On Mal Waldron. Ethan Iversons blog.
Accessed July 14, 2013.
[16] Berg, Chuck (2005) Jazz and Film and Television. In
Kirchner, Bill (ed.) The Oxford Companion to Jazz. p.
717. Oxford University Press.
[17] Zwerin, Mike (January 22, 1998) Mal Waldron: Looking
for Musical Surprises. The New York Times.
[18] Shipton, Alyn (2004) Handful of Keys: Conversations with
Thirty Jazz Pianists. Equinox.
[19] Pareles, Jon (September 10, 1982) Pop/Jazz: Mal Waldron, Expatriate, Brings Quintet to Town The New York
Times. p. C22.
[20] About Enja Records. Enja Records. Accessed July 20,
2013.
[21] George Qui?" British Film Institute. Accessed July 16,
2013.
[22] Brown, John Robert (2010) A Concise History of Jazz. pp.
169170. Mel Bay Publications.
[23] Fordham, John (April 11, 2003) Archie Shepp / Mal
Waldron: Left Alone Revisited. The Guardian.
[24] Nastos, Michael G. Silence: Review. AllMusic. Accessed July 14, 2013.
[25] Mal Waldron, 77; Pianist Played with Many Jazz Greats.
(December 4, 2002) Los Angeles Times.

EXTERNAL LINKS

[26] Glassman, Marc (December 1, 1988) Mal Waldron

Coda. p. 14.
[27] Yanow, Scott (2003) Jazz on Record: The First Sixty Years.
p. 487. Backbeat Books.
[28] Rosenthal, David (1993) Hard Bop: Jazz and Black Music,
19551965. p. 137. Oxford University Press.
[29] Jurek, Thom One: Review. AllMusic. Accessed July 9,
2013.
[30] Pareles, Jon (July 06, 1989) Review/Jazz; Study in Contrasts by Cowell Quartet. The New York Times.
[31] Bruce, Ryan D.W. The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (2nd
ed.). Blake, Ran. Grove Music Online. Oxford Music
Online. Oxford University Press. Accessed July 20, 2013.
(Subscription required.)
[32] Lyons, Len (1983) The Great Jazz Pianists: Speaking of
Their Lives and Music. p. 197. W. Morrow.

8 External links
Chronological list of Mal Waldron records
Mal Waldron discography by session
On Mal Waldron essay by Ethan Iverson

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