Julian Clifford Mance, Jr. (October 10, 1928, to January 17, 2021), also known as Junior Mance, was an American jazz pianist and composer.
Biography
Mance was born in Evanston, Illinois. When he was five years old, Mance began playing piano on an upright in his family's home in Evanston. His father, Julian, taught Mance to play stride piano and boogie-woogie. With his father's permission, Mance had his first professional job in Chicago at the age of ten when his upstairs neighbor, a saxophone player, needed a replacement for a pianist who was sick. Mance was called "Junior" by his family to tell him apart from his father, and the nickname stayed with him throughout his career.
Mance's mother wanted him to study medicine at nearby Northwestern University in Evanston, but she allowed him to attend Roosevelt College in Chicago instead. Although she encouraged him to take pre-med classes, Mance chose music classes. However, jazz was not allowed at the school, and he did not finish the year.
In 1947, while enrolled at Roosevelt College, Mance first played with Gene Ammons in Chicago. He recorded with Ammons on September 23, 1947, for Aladdin Records. They also worked in New York City during a week when Mance was suspended from school after being caught playing jazz in a practice room. In 1949, Lester Young visited Ammons at the Congo Lounge in Chicago. Young's pianist, Bud Powell, had missed his flight, and Young asked Mance to replace him, thinking Mance was a temporary player. At the time, Ammons had just been offered a job in the Woody Herman band and was happy to let Mance leave. Mance recorded with Young for Savoy Records that year and later reunited with Ammons to record with Sonny Stitt for Prestige Records in 1950.
In 1951, the U.S. Army drafted Mance. Two weeks before leaving for Korea, Julian "Cannonball" Adderley helped Mance get a position in the 36th Army Band at Fort Knox, Kentucky, where he worked as the company clerk.
Mance was discharged from the Army in 1953. He immediately began working at the Bee Hive Jazz Club in Chicago, completing the house rhythm section with Israel Crosby (bass) and Buddy Smith (drums). During his year at the Bee Hive, Mance played with musicians such as Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, and Sonny Stitt.
Charlie Parker encouraged Mance to move to New York, which he did after saving money from working nearly a year at the Bee Hive. In 1954, Mance was asked to record with Dinah Washington after Wynton Kelly was drafted. Mance toured with Washington for two years and learned accompaniment techniques from Washington's arranger, Jimmy Jones. EmArcy released two LPs, Dinah Jams and Jam Session, from a live session recorded August 14–15, 1954, in Los Angeles with Mance, Washington, Clifford Brown, Clark Terry, Maynard Ferguson, Herb Geller, Harold Land, Richie Powell, Keter Betts, George Morrow, and Max Roach.
In 1956, Mance joined Cannonball Adderley's first civilian band, along with Nat Adderley, Sam Jones, and Jimmy Cobb. They recorded for EmArcy/Mercury over the next two years. Dinah Washington hired this group to back her on In the Land of Hi-Fi, and Mance also recorded sessions with Johnny Griffin, James Moody, and Wilbur Ware for Argo Records and Riverside during this time.
After the Adderley group broke up due to a lack of work, Adderley joined the Miles Davis Sextet, while Mance replaced Wynton Kelly in Dizzy Gillespie's band. Mance played with Gillespie and Louis Armstrong during a televised performance of the song "Umbrella Man" on CBS in January 1959.
Verve Records founder Norman Granz gave Mance his first recording date as a leader during one of his sessions with Dizzy Gillespie. Granz paired Mance with bassist Ray Brown, and Gillespie's drummer Lex Humphries completed the trio, which recorded together in April 1959. His debut record, Junior, was released by Verve later that year. Mance recorded six albums for Jazzland/Riverside in the early 1960s and joined the Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis/Johnny Griffin quintet, which released seven albums with Mance from 1960 to 1961.
Mance recorded for major labels Capitol (1964–1965) and Atlantic (1966–1970), including one album featuring Mance on harpsichord (Harlem Lullaby, 1966) and a fusion album (With a Lotta Help from My Friends, 1970). During a recording session with Benny Carter for the film A Man Called Adam in 1965, Carter and Mance attended all three sets of an Ornette Coleman performance at the Five Spot Café. Mance said that Carter's open-mindedness inspired his own musical style. Hansen House published his book How to Play Blues Piano in June 1967.
Junior Mance continued to record and perform for the next three decades, though at a slower pace. He made several duet recordings with bassist Martin Rivera and two solo piano recordings for Canadian label Sackville Records, Junior Mance Special and Jubilation. He also taught at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music for 23 years, with students including Brad Mehldau and Larry Goldings, before retiring in 2011.
From 1990 to 2009, Mance was part of a group called "100 Gold Fingers," which frequently toured Japan. The group included many famous pianists, such as Toshiko Akiyoshi, Monty Alexander, Geri Allen, and others, with bassist Bob Cranshaw and either Alan Dawson or Grady Tate on drums.
Mance and his wife Gloria started their own record label, JunGlo,