Eric Scott Reed

Known for his mastery of straight-ahead post-bop and gospel idioms, pianist Eric Reed initially came to the public's attention as a member of <a href="spotify:artist:375zxMmh2cSgUzFFnva0O7">Wynton Marsalis</a>' band in the late 1980s, before pursuing a rewarding solo career in his own right. On his own, Reed has issued a bevy of well-regarded albums like 1993's It's All Right to Swing, 1998's Pure Imagination, and 2009's Stand!, balancing his love of jazz, swing, and African-American church traditions. With <a href="spotify:artist:375zxMmh2cSgUzFFnva0O7">Marsalis</a>, he contributed to such lauded albums as 1992's Citi Movement and 1997's Pulitzer Prize-winning Blood on the Fields. Reed has continued to explore different sounds, moving from his own gospel- and hard bop-influenced albums like 2019's Everybody Gets the Blues to more expansive collaborations such as 2020's Prism with saxophonist <a href="spotify:artist:076PWAWUwxsA4D0QNWf04I">Ralph Moore</a> and Denmark's Matthias Petri and Andreas Svendsen.

Born in Philadelphia in 1970, Reed's first exposure to music came through his father, a minister and local gospel singer. He began playing piano at age two and soon discovered jazz, quickly developing into a musical prodigy. He entered music school at age seven, and resisted classical training in favor of jazz, inspired early on by <a href="spotify:artist:3kUKwTJdH8FuWzF8p6Dg9E">Dave Brubeck</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:7Kfrmups2Z3ncDQmNS5jRc">Ramsey Lewis</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:6QQuESLtKhAOcLW2TeWC2t">Art Blakey</a>, and <a href="spotify:artist:5ZATfKurLqflrBhv2FLht5">Horace Silver</a>. Four years later, he moved with his family to Los Angeles, where he digested enough jazz history that he was able to begin playing around the city's jazz scene as a teenager, both as a leader and a sideman for the likes of <a href="spotify:artist:2gSkBqzo1VXaWnAyjhoYk7">Gerald Wilson</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:1R4eHHIR7Tqx0zje5jzJN8">Teddy Edwards</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:7xpCL3ZjAsjhUIPJBE5PmB">John Clayton</a>, and <a href="spotify:artist:3MmQAaWO06tTOnbUhfDAfF">Clora Bryant</a>. He first met <a href="spotify:artist:375zxMmh2cSgUzFFnva0O7">Wynton Marsalis</a> at age 17, and toured briefly with the trumpeter the following year (his first and only year studying at Cal State-Northridge). In 1989, Reed officially joined <a href="spotify:artist:375zxMmh2cSgUzFFnva0O7">Marsalis</a>' band as the replacement for <a href="spotify:artist:6dz608P8sHylVvVVo5OLx2">Marcus Roberts</a>. The next year, he issued his debut album as a leader, A Soldier's Hymn, on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Candid%22">Candid</a>, with backing by his regular trio of bassist <a href="spotify:artist:6bc7L0muoQvrJmrehvygRT">Dwayne Burno</a> and drummer <a href="spotify:artist:4uFjFfYlOxBKvdHKuHqk2y">Gregory Hutchinson</a>.

In 1991 and 1992, Reed worked with <a href="spotify:artist:0fTHKjepK5HWOrb2rkS5Em">Freddie Hubbard</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:3BG0nwVh3Gc7cuT4XdsLtt">Joe Henderson</a> as a sideman, returning to <a href="spotify:artist:375zxMmh2cSgUzFFnva0O7">Marsalis</a>' group by the end of 1992. He cut a pair of well-received albums for <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22MoJazz%22">MoJazz</a>, 1993's It's All Right to Swing and 1994's The Swing and I, and embarked on his first tour as leader of his own group the following year. Two more dates followed for <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Impulse%21%22">Impulse!</a>, 1996's Musicale and 1997's number eight Billboard Jazz Albums-charting Pure Imagination. These records found his style maturing and his critical and commercial success growing. He also spent 1996-1998 playing with the <a href="spotify:artist:57tcqQ5NpKmaGE9zHMTiez">Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra</a>. 1999's Manhattan Melodies, his first outing for <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Verve%22">Verve</a>, was a colorful and sophisticated tribute to New York City; that year, he also undertook the most prominent of several film-scoring projects, the <a href="spotify:artist:1Zq8pfBl4ejCMrWdeAdphc">Eddie Murphy</a>/<a href="spotify:artist:6LlitI30eC5HRXcTR5zBKO">Martin Lawrence</a> comedy Life. Reed also continued to record with <a href="spotify:artist:375zxMmh2cSgUzFFnva0O7">Marsalis</a> up into the new millennium.

2001 brought the acclaimed Happiness on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Nagel-Heyer%22">Nagel-Heyer</a>, and the next year saw two releases, the well-received From My Heart and a duet album with frequent cohort <a href="spotify:artist:3XpQZYLkyv9lwvnjL81dXg">Wycliffe Gordon</a> on trombone, We. Reed recorded and played frequently during subsequent years, including a second volume with <a href="spotify:artist:3XpQZYLkyv9lwvnjL81dXg">Gordon</a> (We, Vol. 2) and several sessions for <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Savant%22">Savant</a>. In 2009, Reed released the gospel-inspired Stand! and returned the following year with Plenty Swing, Plenty Soul, a duet album with <a href="spotify:artist:319U6LVt3j3iT9oAEzrpRO">Cyrus Chestnut</a>.

Beginning with 2011's The Dancing Monk, Reed embarked on an ongoing recording project of <a href="spotify:artist:4PDpGtF16XpqvXxsrFwQnN">Thelonious Monk</a>'s music, a theme he revisited on 2012's Baddest Monk and 2014's The Adventurous Monk. That same year, he issued Groovewise on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Smoke+Sessions%22">Smoke Sessions</a>, playing with saxophonist <a href="spotify:artist:5tGDXwaO3qq4w9mAhZHwZY">Seamus Blake</a>, bassist <a href="spotify:artist:2NVNbP5qYO9vHhOPGGuPJV">Ben Williams</a>, and drummer <a href="spotify:artist:4uFjFfYlOxBKvdHKuHqk2y">Gregory Hutchinson</a>. <a href="spotify:artist:2NVNbP5qYO9vHhOPGGuPJV">Williams</a> was also on board for 2017's A Light in the Darkness, which found the pianist returning to his gospel roots. In 2019, Reed issued his second <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Smoke+Sessions%22">Smoke Sessions</a> date, Everybody Gets the Blues, with saxophonist <a href="spotify:artist:0NRqCARGQ4qv2k47V6w7iu">Tim Green</a>, bassist Mike Gurrola, and drummer McClenty Hunter. The following year, he joined bassist Matthias Petri, saxophonist <a href="spotify:artist:076PWAWUwxsA4D0QNWf04I">Ralph Moore</a>, and drummer Andreas Svendsen for Prism, the eponymous debut album from their quartet. Also in 2020, he released his third <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Smoke+Sessions%22">Smoke Sessions</a> album, For Such a Time as This, a quintet date with saxophonist Chris Lewis. ~ Matt Collar & Steve Huey, Rovi