Biography All Music Guide Wikipedia
All Music Guide:
Curtis Counce was an in-demand session bassist and one of the first African Americans to get heavily involved in the West Coast jazz movement in the 1940s. He studied violin and tuba in addition to bass before leaving his native city for employment with the Nat Towles Band in Omaha at the age of 16. He moved to L.A. in 1945, taking a job with Johnny Otis at the Club Alabam and made his recording debut with Lester Young the following year. He recorded prolifically as a sideman (Shelly Manne, Lyle Murphy, Teddy Charles, Clifford Brown) before starting his famous quintet in 1956. His premature death from a heart attack was a tragic loss to jazz. All of Counce's Contemporary dates as a leader have been reissued, as has the once rare Exploring the Future. An added bonus was the appearance of previously unreleased Contemporary masters on the 1989 CD Sonority.
Wikipedia:
Curtis Counce (January 23, 1926 – July 31, 1963) was an American hard bop and West Coast jazz double bassist.
Biography
Counce was born in Kansas City, Missouri and moved to California in 1945. He began recording in the 1950s in Los Angeles with Shelly Manne, Lyle Murphy, Teddy Charles, Clifford Brown, and many others. Counce formed his quintet in 1956 featuring tenor saxophonist Harold Land, trumpeters Jack Sheldon and Gerald Wilson, pianist Carl Perkins and drummer Frank Butler. Elmo Hope replaced Perkins after his death at age 29 in 1957. The four albums originally released on Contemporary Records were reissued in 2006 on a double CD by Gambit Spain. Counce died in Los Angeles, California, of a heart attack.
