Odean Pope

Odean Pope ( born October 24, 1938 in Ninety Six, South Carolina) is an American jazz saxophonist.

Life and work

Pope grew up in Philadelphia, where he attended and including the Benjamin Franklin High School studied with Benny Golson, Archie Shepp, Ray Bryant and Max Roach. He was also a student of Kenny Clarke in Paris and attended the Berklee School of Music in Boston. He worked among others at this time with Jimmy McGriff, McCoy Tyner, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Chet Baker and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.

1967 - 1968 he undertook with Max Roach a European tour. From 1971 to 1974 he headed the group Catalyst, with whom he recorded four albums. He also worked for Archie Shepp, Grachan Moncur III, Dizzy Gillespie, Grover Washington Jr. and Reggie Workman. In 1977 he founded the Saxophone Choir, a band of eight saxophonists and a rhythm section, with whom he performed in the U.S., Germany and the North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland.

In 1979 he became a member of the Max Roach Quartet, with whom he recorded seven albums. In 1981 he founded a trio with Gerald Veasley and Cornell Rochester. His first album as a bandleader Almost Like Me, he took on in 1982. In the 1990s he founded with Tyrone Brown and Mickey Roker (later Craig McIver ) another trio. In 1991 he was honored by the International Association for Jazz Education. He studied at the Philadelphia Midway Music School and the Granoff School of Music and was Artist in Residence at the Community College of Philadelphia, at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, at Amherst College and the Philadelphia Performing and Creative Arts High School.

He went further on with jazz musicians such as Miles Davis, Clark Terry, Lee Morgan, Elvin Jones, but also with Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder.

Discography

  • Almost Like Me ( 1982)
  • Saxophone Shop ( 1985)
  • Ponderer (1990 )
  • Out for a Walk ( 1990)
  • Epitome (1993 )
  • Ninety Six (1996 )
  • Collective Voices (1996 )
  • Ebioto (1999)
  • Changes & Changes ( 1999)
  • Nothing Is Wrong ( 2004) ( with Khan Jamal )
  • Two Dreams (2004)
  • The Misled Children Meet Odean Pope ( 2008) ( with Misled Children)
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