Sam Dockery Explained

Samuel Dockery (1929 – December 21, 2015), nicknamed Sure-Footed Sam, was a hard bop pianist and well-respected musician on the Philadelphia jazz scene since the early 1950s.^[1] Dockery was born in Camden, New Jersey.^[2] He appears on 11 recordings as the pianist for Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers and composed "Sam's Tune" which appears on their 1957 Blue Note recording Ritual.^[3] In 1963 he was the pianist for Betty Carter's extended engagement at Birdland,^[4] and headed The Sam Dockery Trio in Philadelphia during the 1990s. He also taught at Philadelphia's University of the Arts.^[1] He died in a nursing home in 2015, aged 86. His brother was bassist Wayne Dockery.

Discography

With Art Blakey

• Hard Bop (Columbia, 1956)
• Originally (Columbia, 1956) - unreleased until 1982
• Drum Suite (Columbia, 1956)
• Mirage (Savoy, 1957)
• (Pacific Jazz, 1957)
• Selections from Lerner and Loewe's... (Vik, 1957)
• A Night in Tunisia (Vik, 1957)
• Cu-Bop (Jubilee, 1957)
• Tough! (Cadet, 1957 [1966])
• Hard Drive (Bethlehem, 1957)

With Clifford Brown

• The Beginning and the End (Columbia, 1973) - 1956 performance recorded in Philadelphia

With Butch Ballard and Dylan Taylor

• Mozaic

Notes and References

1. Allmusic Biography
2. http://www.philly.com/philly/obituaries/20151228_Samuel_Dockery__86__Philadelphia_jazz_pianist.html "Samuel Dockery, 86; Philadelphia jazz pianist"
3. Alan Goldsher, Hard bop academy: the sidemen of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Hal Leonard Corporation, 2002, p. 91.
4. William R. Bauer, Open the Door: The Life and Music of Betty Carter, University of Michigan Press, 2003, p.91.