Oliver Nelson -

Oliver Nelson (June 4, 1932 — Oct. 28, 1975) was an American post-bop/jazz-funk saxophonist, clarinetist, arranger, composer, and bandleader from St. Louis. He began recording as a leader on Prestige in 1959 and established his best-known composition, “Stolen Moments,” on the 1961 Impulse! album The Blues and the Abstract Truth.

Nelson arranged Sixties sessions for Jimmy Smith, Wes Montgomery, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, and Stanley Turrentine. His bandleader titles include Afro-American Sketches and Full Nelson. After a 1967 move to Los Angeles, he scored film and television projects and arranged sessions for Nancy Wilson, James Brown, the Temptations, and Diana Ross. His later jazz-funk work culminated with the 1975 Flying Dutchman album Skull Session.

Background

Oliver Edward Nelson was born June 4, 1932, in St. Louis, Missouri, the youngest of four siblings in a musical family. His older brother Eugene Nelson Jr. played alto saxophone with Cootie Williams in the Forties, while sister Leontine worked in St. Louis as a pianist and singer. Nelson began piano lessons by age six and saxophone at eleven. He graduated from Sumner High School.

In 1947, the fifteen-year-old Nelson went professional with the Jeter-Pillars Orchestra. He joined the St. Louis big band of trumpeter George Hudson for 1948 engagements at Club Plantation and the Apollo Theater. Nelson moved to the Nat Towles Orchestra in 1949 and also played lead alto with trumpeter Eddie Randle and the Blue Devils. Randle taught Nelson mortuary science, and Nelson worked in St. Louis funeral homes while weighing music against that trade.

Louis Jordan hired Nelson in 1950 as an alto saxophonist and arranger. Nelson made his recording debut with Jordan at a June 5, 1951 Decca session in New York, the first of several Jordan dates that year. He remained with the expanded Jordan orchestra through sessions in November.

Nelson served from March 1952 to March 1954 with the U.S. Marine Corps Third Division Band in Japan and Korea. A Tokyo Philharmonic program of Mother Goose Suite by Maurice Ravel and Symphony in E-flat by Paul Hindemith prompted Nelson to pursue composition. He returned to St. Louis for formal study after military service.

Nelson studied composition and theory at Washington University from 1954 to 1957 under Robert Wykes. He completed a 1958 master’s degree in music at Lincoln University in Jefferson City and also studied privately with Elliott Carter. Nelson played alto saxophone with pianist Tommy Dean on 1954–55 Chicago sessions for Vee-Jay Records.

Nelson wrote Divertimento for Chamber Orchestra for a 1956 St. Louis Symphony performance. He completed the 1957 Sonata for E-flat Alto Sax and Piano. These works established a parallel composition program alongside his saxophone work.

Nelson moved to New York after graduate study and worked with Erskine Hawkins, Quartet Tres Bien, and the Apollo Theater house band under Reuben Phillips. He spent summer 1959 in Atlantic City with organist Wild Bill Davis and drummer Grady Tate. The Louie Bellson orchestra brought Nelson to Los Angeles for an August Verve session released on The Brilliant Bellson Sound.

Nelson led his first session for New Jazz on Oct. 30, 1959, at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. His quintet featured trumpeter Kenny Dorham, pianist Ray Bryant, bassist Wendell Marshall, and drummer Art Taylor. New Jazz issued the six-title session as Meet Oliver Nelson.

Discography:

Meet Oliver Nelson (1959)
Taking Care of Business (1960)
Screamin’ the Blues (1961 • Oliver Nelson Sextet)
Straight Ahead (1961 • Oliver Nelson with Eric Dolphy)
Nocturne (1961)
The Blues and the Abstract Truth (1961)
Impressions of Phaedra (1962)
Afro/American Sketches (1962 • Oliver Nelson Orchestra)
Soul Battle (1962 • Oliver Nelson, King Curtis & Jimmy Forrest)
Main Stem (1962)
Full Nelson (1963)
Fantabulous (1964 • Oliver Nelson and His Orchestra)
More Blues and the Abstract Truth (1965)
Happenings (1966 • Hank Jones & Oliver Nelson)
Plays Michelle (1966)
Sound Pieces (1967)
The Spirit of ’67 (1967 • Pee Wee Russell and Oliver Nelson and His Orchestra)
The Kennedy Dream (1967 • Oliver Nelson and His Orchestra)
Jazzhattan Suite – Jazz Interactions Orchestra (1968)
Leonard Feather Presents the Sound of Feeling and the Sound of Oliver Nelson (1968 • The Sound of Feeling / Oliver Nelson)
Soulful Brass (1968 • Oliver Nelson and Steve Allen)
Coldwater Flat (1968 • The Three Sounds and the Oliver Nelson Orchestra)
Black, Brown and Beautiful (1969)
Black, Brown and Beautiful (1970)
Zigzag (OST, 1970)
Berlin Dialog for Orchestra (1971)
In London With Oily Rags (1974)
Skull Session (1975)
Stolen Moments (1975)