Ed Summerlin


Edgar Eugene Summerlin was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and educator known for pioneering Liturgical jazz, avant-garde jazz, and free jazz.

Early life and career

Born on September 1, 1928 in Marianna, Florida, and raised primarily in Missouri, Summerlin was the second of four children born to Velma and William Edgar Summerlin. In 1940, he began attending Lexington Junior-Senior High School, and was promptly elected president of the 7th grade. Summerlin graduated from Central [Missouri State University] in 1951 with a Bachelor of Music Education ; the following year, he earned a Master of Music from the Eastman School. He subsequently free-lanced for approximately half a decade, including stints with bandleaders Sonny Dunham, Ted Weems, and Tony Pastor. In 1958, after learning about the University of North Texas College of Music while performing with the Johnny Long Band, Summerlin enrolled as a graduate student and became a member of Lab Band and also assisted Gene Hall in teaching jazz composition, theory, and saxophone.

Liturgical works

On January 27, 1959, while a graduate student at the University of North Texas College of Music, Summerlin, along with his then wife, Mary Elizabeth, suffered the horribly untimely, but evidently not unforeseen passing of their less-than-10-month-old daughter, attributed by attending physician Thomas V. Patterson to "congestive heart failure due to congenital heart disease." Shortly thereafter, acting on the suggestion of Bill Slack, Jr., Assistant Pastor of the First Methodist Church of Denton, Summerlin composed Requiem for Mary Jo, which has long been regarded as one of the first significant uses of jazz in a liturgical service.
He performed Requiem for Mary Jo May 20, 1959, during a service in the chapel at the Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University. Dr. Roger Ellwood Ortmayer, then of the Perkins School, had commissioned the work.
That same year, still studying and teaching at North Texas, Summerlin recorded his debut LP, Liturgical Jazz, on which "Requiem for Mary Jo," was the heartbreaking centerpiece.
Saturday night, February 13, 1960, NBC's World Wide 60 visited Denton to air the story of Ed Summerlin's liturgical jazz.
Summerlin's grieving and spiritual creativity inspired him to compose other liturgical jazz pieces, including
  • Episcopal Evensong
  • Jazz Vespers Service
  • ''Liturgy of the Holy Spirit''

    TV and film work

At the same time, his well-publicized prime time television debut was followed by several Sunday morning appearances throughout the 1960s on the long-running CBS series, Look Up and Live, collaborating with musicians such as Freddie Hubbard, Eric Dolphy, Don Ellis, Slide Hampton, and Ron Carter, as well as choreographer Anna Sokolow. During this decade, Summerlin also scored two feature films, the little-known 1963 Bay of Pigs-inspired drama, We Shall Return and the even lesser known 1967 film Ciao, which, after becoming the only U.S. feature film to be entered in that year's Venice Film Festival, failed to find a distributor and quickly disappeared from view.

New York

Summerlin relocated to New York in the early 1960s, where he gradually established himself as an avant-garde tenor saxophonist, composer and arranger, freelancing with Eric Dolphy, Pete LaRoca, Don Ellis, and Sheila Jordan. He also composed and arranged for Ron Carter, Kuhn, Freddie Hubbard, Dave Liebman, Toshiko Akiyoshi, and Lee Konitz. In 1966, he worked with Jackson Mac Low, Max Neuhaus, James Tenney, David Behrman, Philip Corner, Jeanne Lee, Emmett Williams, David Antin, and others. In 1969, collaborated with saxophonist and journalist Don Heckman to co-lead the Improvisational Jazz Workshop.
In 1971, Summerlin founded the jazz program at City College of New York, which he was director until 1989.

Personal life and death

Summerlin was married three times. On August 29, 1948, three days before his 20th birthday, Summerlin and his Central Missouri State classmate Virginia Lee Allen were married at the First Presbyterian Church in Independence; their son, Sean Eugene, was born the following year on October 29. In September 1954, Mrs. Summerlin filed for divorce; it was granted in 1955. In September 1955, Summerlin married Mary Elizabeth Bouknight. Their son Jeffrey was born in 1960, but not before the former Mary Bouknight gave birth to her husband's most famously unlucky child in April 1958. Exactly when, why and/or how this marriage ended is not clear, but they appear to have been together at least as late as February 1968.
In December 1974, in a ceremony conducted at Ornette Coleman's Artist House in Manhattan's Soho, Manhattan neighborhood, Summerlin married Dayton, Ohio native and Ohio University graduate, Karen Louise Jones, then employed as director of communication services for public schools in Hyde Park, New York.
Summerlin died on October 10, 2006 in Rhinebeck, NY after a long battle with cancer, survived by his wife Karen and sons Sean and Jeffrey from the previous two marriages.

Selected discography

As leader

With Freddie Hubbard
With Steve Kuhn and Toshiko Akiyoshi
With Caedmon Records
With The Rock Generation
  • ''Saturday in the Park and Other Songs Made Famous by Chicago''

    As sideman or combo member

  • The Contemporary Jazz Ensemble: New Sounds From Rochester, Prestige Records
  1. All the Things You Are
  2. Fantasia and Fugue on Poinciana
  3. Prelude : Go Forth
  4. Prelude and Jazz
  5. ''Variation''