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William “Red” Garland was born in Dallas, Texas on May 13, 1923. Showing an early interest in music, he began his musical studies on the clarinet and alto saxophone but switched to the piano. Garland spent copious amounts of time practicing and rapidly developed into a proficient player. A short early career as a welterweight boxer did not seem to hurt his playing hands and he fought a young Sugar Ray Robinson before making the switch to a full-time musician.

Garland’s trademark block chord technique, a style that would influence many forthcoming pianists in the jazz idiom and a commonly borrowed maneuver in jazz piano today, was unique and differed from the methods of earlier block chord pioneers such as George Shearing and Milt Buckner. His block chords were constructed of three notes in the right hand and four notes in the left hand, with the right hand one octave above the left. The right hand played the melody in octaves with a perfect 5th placed in the middle of the octave.

After WWII he performed with Roy Eldridge, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker and Lester Young. He found steady work in Boston, New York and Philadelphia and by the late 40s he was touring with Eddie Vinson at the same time that John Coltrane was in Vinson’s band. His creativity and playing ability continued to improve, though he was still somewhat obscure. By the time he became a pianist for Miles Davis he was influenced by Ahmad Jamal and Charlie Parker’s pianist Walter Bishop.

Red Garland found fame in 1955 when he joined the Miles Davis Quintet along with John Coltrane, Philly Joe Jones and Paul Chambers and together they recorded several Prestige albums such as Workin’, Steamin’ Cookin’ and Relaxin’, that would later influence the free jazz movement. He would go on to play on ‘Round About Midnight and Milestones but would be eventually be fired by Miles.

In 1958 Garland formed his own trio. Among the musicians the trio recorded with Pepper Adams, Nat Adderley, Ray Barretto, Kenny Burrell, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Jimmy Heath, Harold Land, Leroy Vinnegar and many others to numerous to list.

Red released some 46 albums as a leader, recording sessions for Prestige, Fantasy, Galaxy, Jazzland, Keystone, Xanadu, Alfa, Moodsville and New Jazz record labels. He sat in as a sideman for such greats as Arnett Cobb, Art Pepper, John Coltrane and Phil Woods.

Stopping his playing professionally for a number of years in the 1960s when jazz lost popularity to rock and roll, he returned to Dallas to care for his mother. Pianist Red Garland recorded sparsely through the 70s but continued recording and performing until his death of a heart attack on April 23, 1984 at the age of 61.

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