Julian Clifford “Junior” Mance is a living, thriving link to the history of jazz. When he was a teenager, the Chicago pianist backed up saxophonist Gene Ammons. From there he toured with another saxophone king, Lester Young, as well as singer Dinah Washington, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and saxophonist Julian “Cannonball” Adderley.
All of these artists were distinctive, and Mance learned enough from them to know that he should have his own sound down. With his blues leanings and jaw-dropping mastery of the keyboard, he’s an 82-year-old artist who plays and speaks like an individual half that age. I don’t know why he isn’t mentioned in the upper echelon of jazz pianists on a more frequent basis. His recordings, if they are from 1960 or 2010, are consistently excellent and full of graceful fire.
“I still go to the gym,” he tells me. “In my early ’70s, I started studying karate. It did something for me both physically and spiritually. A sound body creates a sound mind.”
Mance will bring his quintet to Dazzle on Saturday and CU’s Old Main Theater on Feb. 14. He hasn’t performed in Colorado in at least half a century.
“I played Denver with Dinah Washington back in the ’50s,” he says.
Mance speaks of his former employers with warmth. I found that out when I asked him to give me some dirt on Washington, who was known to be tempestuous.
“She was great to me. Everybody who ever worked for her enjoyed her. If you played the music right, then she was great. She kept calling me back for certain record dates, but I was working with Cannonball, who I served with in the Army.”
He went on to tell the story of how he came to audition for Adderley, who was heading up an Army band during the Korean conflict. The tale involved a young Mance sitting in for another pianist who had a date. Mance was wearing a steel helmet and combat boots when he auditioned. Adderley was so moved by his playing that he employed phony orders to get Mance out of heading to combat so he could join his band.
I tell Mance that he should write his autobiography.
“You sound like my wife,” Mance responds.
I hope that he seriously considers putting his memoirs together. He speaks with such clarity and affection that it would be a shame if the world missed out on his story as a professional musician, which began when he was expelled from Illinois’ Roosevelt University for playing jazz (he was a classical music student, and such demonstrations could be considered an outrage at the time).
In the meantime, there is Mance’s music, which is there to be enjoyed on CD or live in this rare Colorado performance, which apparently happens around every 50 plus years.
Junior Mance Quintet, Saturday, 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., Dazzle Restaurant and Lounge, 930 Lincoln St. $20. Get information at ; and Feb. 14, 7:30 p.m.. Old Main Theater, CU Boulder, 1202 University Ave. Admission is free; sponsored by the CU Coalition for Creative Music.
Upcoming acts.
On Tuesday, it’s the B-3 Project featuring Laura Newman at Herb’s. . . . New Orleans’ Trombone Shorty appears at the Bluebird Theater on Feb. 15 and Boulder’s Fox Theatre on Feb. 16. . . . Denver saxophonist Fred Hess celebrates his new big-band CD, “Into the Open,” with two performances at Dazzle on Feb. 18. . . . Medeski Martin and Wood are scheduled for the Boulder Theater on March 4, and bassist Stanley Clarke appears there with his band on March 12.
