Neal Creque
Earl Neal Creque ( born April 13, 1940 in Saint Thomas, † December 1, 2000 in Olmsted Falls, Ohio ) was an American jazz pianist who has emerged mainly as a composer of songs.
Life and work
Creque, whose father played classical piano, had from the age of five piano lessons. At age nine, he came with his father on the radio as a duo Creque & Creque. In 1956, he came from the Virgin Islands to the United States to visit the Theil College in Greenville ( Pennsylvania). He then spent four years in the Air Force, where he played in a marching band, after he was unable to pursue career as a pilot. For two years, he moved to Miami, where he worked roll band in a Rock ' n'. Then he went to New York City, where he was first a member of the Latin Soul Brothers Pucho Brown was before he worked with percussionist Mongo Santamaria. He also took with Stanley Turrentine, Teresa Brewer, Leon Thomas, Grant Green, Harold Ousley, Bernard Purdie and Eddie " Cleanhead " Vinson on. Then he led the band by Carmen McRae and presented their own albums before he moved in 1973 with his family to Cleveland. There he worked as a music teacher, before being appointed in 1988 as a university teacher of Jazz Piano to the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, first at the Cleveland State University and the Cleveland Music Settlement.
Creque wrote more than 3000 songs. Many of his compositions have been recorded, some of Pucha Brown, Grant Green, Ramsey Lewis, Johnny Lytle, Ronnie Earl, Leon Thomas, and pink. With Mongo Santamaria, he wrote the Grammy -nominated song " Sofrito ", the later of Jennifer Lopez on the album J.Lo. was sampled.
The singer Nina Creque is his daughter.
Disco Graphical Notes
- Contrast! ( Cobblestone Records, 1972)
- 1972: Creque ( Cobblestone, 1972, and later as Black Velvet Rose at Muse Records)
- 1973: The Hand of Time ( Muse Records)