Ralph Sutton

Ralph Earl Sutton was an American jazz pianist born 4 November 1922 in Hamburg, Missouri. He died 30 December 2001 in Evergreen, Colorado. Ralph Sutton was the greatest stride pianist to emerge since World War II, with his only close competitors being the late Dick Wellstood and the very versatile Dick Hyman. Nearly alone in his generation, Sutton kept alive the piano styles of Fats Waller and James P. Johnson, not as mere museum pieces but as devices for exciting improvisations.