Richard Grossman

One of the least-known and most inventive of free jazz pianists was Richard Grossman. Though he came up in a somewhat conventional jazz lineage in Philadelphia, hanging out and playing with Jimmy Garrison, Henry Grimes, and Odean Pope. Hearing Ornette Coleman and the new Viennese school of composers changed all that. He moved to the West Coast and explored the free terrain with the likes of the late John Carter and Vinny Golia. He died an early death in 1992. ~ Thom Jurek