Samuel Dockery (1929 – December 21, 2015), nicknamed Sure-Footed Sam, was a hard bop pianist and well-respected musician on the Philadelphia jazz scene since the early 1950s. [1] Dockery was born in Camden, New Jersey. [2] He appears on 11 recordings as the pianist for Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers and composed "Sam's Tune" which appears on their 1957 Blue Note recording Ritual. [3] In 1963 he was the pianist for Betty Carter's extended engagement at Birdland, [4] and headed The Sam Dockery Trio in Philadelphia during the 1990s. He also taught at Philadelphia's University of the Arts. [1] He died in a nursing home in 2015, aged 86. [2] His brother was bassist Wayne Dockery.
Discography
With Art Blakey
- Hard Bop (Columbia, 1956)
- Originally ( Columbia, 1956) - unreleased until 1982
- Drum Suite (Columbia, 1956)
- Mirage ( Savoy, 1957)
- Ritual: The Modern Jazz Messengers ( Pacific Jazz, 1957)
- Selections from Lerner and Loewe's... ( Vik, 1957)
- A Night in Tunisia (Vik, 1957)
- Cu-Bop ( Jubilee, 1957)
- Tough! ( Cadet, 1957 [1966])
- Hard Drive ( Bethlehem, 1957)
With Clifford Brown
- The Beginning and the End (Columbia, 1973) - 1956 performance recorded in Philadelphia
With Butch Ballard and Dylan Taylor
- Mozaic
References
- ^ a b Allmusic Biography. See also: "A Veteran Piano Man Just Keeps on Playing", Philadelphia Inquirer, August 9, 1996
- ^ a b "Samuel Dockery, 86; Philadelphia jazz pianist"
- ^ Alan Goldsher, Hard bop academy: the sidemen of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Hal Leonard Corporation, 2002, p. 91. ISBN 0-634-03793-5
- ^ William R. Bauer, Open the Door: The Life and Music of Betty Carter, University of Michigan Press, 2003, p.91. ISBN 0472067915
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