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For more than four decades, pianist and composer Joe Sample has been an integral, innovative and bestselling part of jazz history.  He formed the seminal group the Jazz Crusaders, later known as the Crusaders, as a teenager in the early 50’s with neighborhood buddies, Wilton Felder, Stix Hooper, and Wayne Henderson.  The group became one of the all time leading jazz ensembles and pioneered the way for the sound of contemporary jazz.  Joe’s first solo record in 1973, Carmel  became a classic pop jazz album before anyone knew what “pop jazz” was.  He continues today as one of the legendary figures in contemporary jazz music.

Learning to play piano at age five, the Houston native’s formative years found him firmly rooted in many different musical traditions, including gospel, soul, bebop, blues, Latin, and classical music. One of the many jazzmen who started out playing hard bop but went electric during the fusion era, (soon after attending Texas Southern University for three years,) Sample founded the Jazz Crusaders along with trombonist Wayne Henderson, tenor saxman Wilton Felder and drummer Stix Hooper. Relocating to and launching their storied career in Los Angeles, The Crusaders patterned themselves after Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, only without a trumpet and becoming renowned for their unique tenor/trombone front line.

Sample focused on the acoustic piano during the Crusaders’ early years (late 50s-early 60s), but began to place greater emphasis on electric keyboards  when the band turned to jazz/funk in the early 70s and dropped the “Jazz” from its name. After garnering numerous gold and platinum albums over the course of nearly three decades, The Crusaders’ last official recording was Life in the Modern World in 1987. Sample and Felder released the dual album Healing the Wounds on GRP in the early 90s, and in 2003 rejoined Hooper for a more full-scale reunion that produced the Southern styled hit jazz fusion recording Rural Renewal—billed as the first new album by The Crusaders in over 20 years—and a popular subsequent tour.

While actively touring as a member of the Crusaders, Sample simultaneously launched a successful solo career. His bestselling recordings include Rainbow Seeker, Carmel, Voices in the Rain, Spellbound, Ashes to Ashes, Invitation (a return to his bebop roots), Did You Feel That?, Old Places, Old Faces and the George Duke produced Sample This. GRP also released The Joe Sample Collection and the three CD Crusaders Collection as testament to Sample’s  enduring legacy. The pianist’s most recent recordings are 1999’s The Song Lives On (featuring duets with singer Lalah Hathaway) and 2002’s The Pecan Tree, a colorful tribute to his hometown of Houston, where he relocated in 1994.

In addition to his own recording, Sample has toured and performed with numerous musical greats in all genres, including Marvin Gaye, Tina Turner, BB King, Eric Clapton, Joe Cocker, Randy Crawford (who sang on the 1979 Crusaders smash “Street Life”), Anita Baker, Andrae Crouch and many others.

 

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