ABSTRACT
The author conducted interviews with 35 jazz artists between 2009 and 2012 in New York City, with a historical essay on each artist to provide context. He interviewed Cedar Walton on March 23, 2012. Pianist Cedar Walton, born January 17, 1934, and died August 19, 2013, came to international recognition through his work with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. While Walton claimed that he was a practitioner of jazz music rather than an innovator, he seemed to find himself at the right place at the right time on multiple occasions, starting in the early '50s as the house pianist at Lil's Chinese Restaurant in Denver, when such jazz luminaries as Johnny Hodges, Charlie Parker and John Coltrane would stop by to sit in with the band. Moving to New York by the late '50s, Walton would reconnect and work with John Coltrane, eventually recording on the title track of Coltrane's Giant Steps record.
