Samuel Dockery (1929 – December 21, 2015), nicknamed Sure-Footed Sam, was a

hard bop Hard bop is a subgenre of jazz that is an extension of bebop (or "bop") music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz that incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gosp ...

pianist and well-respected musician on the

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a majo ...

scene since the early 1950s. Allmusic Biography See als
"A Veteran Piano Man Just Keeps on Playing"
''

Philadelphia Inquirer ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper's circulation is the largest in both the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley metropolitan region of Southeastern Penns ...

'', August 9, 1996 Dockery was born in

Camden, New Jersey Camden is a city in and the county seat of Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Camden is part of the Delaware Valley metropolitan area and is located directly across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At the 20 ...

."Samuel Dockery, 86; Philadelphia jazz pianist"
/ref> He appears on 11 recordings as the pianist for

Art Blakey Arthur Blakey (October 11, 1919 – October 16, 1990) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. He was also known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina after he converted to Islam for a short time in the late 1940s. Blakey made a name for himself in the ...

& the Jazz Messengers and composed "Sam's Tune" which appears on their 1957

Blue Note In jazz and blues, a blue note is a note that—for expressive purposes—is sung or played at a slightly different pitch from standard. Typically the alteration is between a quartertone and a semitone, but this varies depending on the musical c ...

recording ''Ritual''. In 1963 he was the pianist for

Betty Carter Betty Carter (born Lillie Mae Jones; May 16, 1929 – September 26, 1998) was an American jazz singer known for her improvisational technique, scatting and other complex musical abilities that demonstrated her vocal talent and imaginative int ...

's extended engagement at Birdland,William R. Bauer
''Open the Door: The Life and Music of Betty Carter''
University of Michigan Press, 2003, p.91. and headed The Sam Dockery Trio in Philadelphia during the 1990s. He also taught at Philadelphia's University of the Arts. He died in a nursing home in 2015, aged 86. His brother was bassist Wayne Dockery.

Discography

With

* '' Originally'' (

Columbia Columbia may refer to: * Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America Places North America Natural features * Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region in ...

, 1956) - unreleased until 1982 * ''

Hard Bop Hard bop is a subgenre of jazz that is an extension of bebop (or "bop") music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz that incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gosp ...

'' (Columbia, 1956) * '' Originally'' (Columbia, 1956 982 * ''

Drum Suite ''Drum Suite'' is an album by drummer Art Blakey with The Jazz Messengers and the Art Blakey Percussion Ensemble, recorded in late 1956 and early 1957 and originally released on the Columbia label. It was the first of several albums recorded by B ...

'' (Columbia, 1956) * ''

Mirage A mirage is a naturally-occurring optical phenomenon in which light rays bend via refraction to produce a displaced image of distant objects or the sky. The word comes to English via the French ''(se) mirer'', from the Latin ''mirari'', meani ...

'' (

Savoy Savoy (; frp, Savouè ; french: Savoie ) is a cultural-historical region in the Western Alps. Situated on the cultural boundary between Occitania and Piedmont, the area extends from Lake Geneva in the north to the Dauphiné in the south. ...

, 1957) * '' Ritual: The Modern Jazz Messengers'' ( Pacific Jazz, 1957) * '' Selections from Lerner and Loewe's...'' ( Vik, 1957) *''

A Night in Tunisia "A Night in Tunisia" is a musical composition written by Dizzy Gillespie around 1940–42, while Gillespie was playing with the Benny Carter band. It has become a jazz standard. It is also known as "Interlude", and with lyrics by Raymond Leveen ...

'' (Vik, 1957) *'' Cu-Bop'' (

Jubilee A jubilee is a particular anniversary of an event, usually denoting the 25th, 40th, 50th, 60th, and the 70th anniversary. The term is often now used to denote the celebrations associated with the reign of a monarch after a milestone number of ...

, 1957) * '' Tough!'' (

Cadet A cadet is an officer trainee or candidate. The term is frequently used to refer to those training to become an officer in the military, often a person who is a junior trainee. Its meaning may vary between countries which can include youths in ...

, 1957 966 * ''

Hard Drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magne ...

'' (

Bethlehem Bethlehem (; ar, بيت لحم ; he, בֵּית לֶחֶם '' '') is a city in the central West Bank, Palestine, about south of Jerusalem. Its population is approximately 25,000,Amara, 1999p. 18.Brynen, 2000p. 202. and it is the capital ...

, 1957) With Clifford Brown * '' The Beginning and the End (Columbia, 1973) - 1956 performance recorded in Philadelphia With Butch Ballard and Dylan Taylor * '' Mozaic ''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dockery, Sam 1929 births 2015 deaths musicians from Camden, New Jersey Hard bop pianists The Jazz Messengers members Musicians from Philadelphia University of the Arts (Philadelphia) faculty