Julian Euell is an American jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 bassist

Double bass

The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...

.

Euell first began playing bass in 1944, and served in the Army

United States Army

The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

 from 1945-47. He played with Sonny Rollins

Sonny Rollins

Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...

, Jackie McLean

Jackie McLean

John Lenwood McLean was an American jazz alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader and educator, born in New York City.-Biography:McLean's father, John Sr., played guitar in Tiny Bradshaw's orchestra...

, and Art Taylor

Art Taylor

Arthur S. Taylor, Jr. was an American jazz drummer of the hard bop school.After playing in the bands of Howard McGhee, Coleman Hawkins, Buddy DeFranco, Bud Powell, and George Wallington from 1948 to 1957, he formed his own group, the Wailers...

 in 1947 but quit music from 1949 to 1952, working in a post office

Post office

A post office is a facility forming part of a postal system for the posting, receipt, sorting, handling, transmission or delivery of mail.Post offices offer mail-related services such as post office boxes, postage and packaging supplies...

. In 1952 he studied under Charles Mingus

Charles Mingus

Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...

 and then attended Juilliard from 1953 to 1956, studying with Stuart Sankey

Stuart Sankey

Stuart Sankey was one of foremost pedagogues of the double bass. His students included Gary Karr, the first bass player of the modern era to make a career as a solo artist, and Edgar Meyer. He taught for nearly 50 years at the Aspen Music School. He also held teaching positions at the University...

, and Fred Zimmerman. He also took classes at New York University

New York University

New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

 between 1951 and 1954, and received a bachelor's in sociology

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

 from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

; In 1954-55 he taught there. His musical associations at the time included Elmo Hope

Elmo Hope

St. Elmo Sylvester Hope was an American jazz pianist, performing chiefly in the bop and hard bop genres. His highly individual piano-playing and, especially, his compositions have led a few enthusiasts and critics such as David Rosenthal to place him alongside his contemporaries Bud Powell and...

 (1952), Benny Harris

Benny Harris

Benny Harris was an American bebop trumpeter and composer.A self-taught musician, in the mid-1930s Benny Harris was already playing with Thelonious Monk. In later years, he participated to some of the jam sessions that gave birth to the bebop jazz style...

 (1952-53), Charlie Rouse

Charlie Rouse

Charlie Rouse was an American hard bop tenor saxophonist and flautist. His career is marked by the collaboration for more than ten years with Thelonious Monk.- Biography :...

 (1953-54), Joe Roland

Joe Roland

Joe Roland is an American jazz vibraphonist.Roland began as a clarinetist, attending the Institute of Musical Art from 1937 to 1939. He started on xylophone in 1940 and began playing vibraphone in the middle of the decade, playing in jazz clubs in New York City...

 (1955), Freddie Redd

Freddie Redd

Freddie Redd is an American hard bop pianist and composer.His greatest success came in the late 1950s in the play and movie The Connection, in which he both played and acted in New York City, London, and Paris. He also played on the soundtrack album...

 (1956), Gigi Gryce

Gigi Gryce

Gigi Gryce was an American saxophonist, flautist, clarinetist, composer, arranger, educator, and big band bandleader.His performing career was relatively short and, in comparison to other musicians of his...

 (1956-57), and Phineas Newborn

Phineas Newborn

Phineas Newborn, Jr. was an American jazz pianist, whose principal influences were Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson and Bud Powell. Newborn came from a musical family with his father, Phineas Newborn, Sr., being a blues musician and his younger brother, Calvin, a jazz guitarist...

 (1957). After this he began doing social work

Social work

Social Work is a professional and academic discipline that seeks to improve the quality of life and wellbeing of an individual, group, or community by intervening through research, policy, community organizing, direct practice, and teaching on behalf of those afflicted with poverty or any real or...

 in New Jersey

New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

 and was less active as a performer, though he continued playing with Mal Waldron

Mal Waldron

Malcolm Earl Waldron was an American jazz and world music pianist and composer, born in New York City.Like his contemporaries, Waldron's roots lie chiefly in the hard bop and post-bop genres of the New York club scene of the 1950s; but with time, he gravitated more towards free jazz and composition...

 (1958-60), Randy Weston

Randy Weston

Randy Weston , is an American jazz pianist and composer, of Jamaican parentage.-Biography:Weston studied classical piano as a child. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, he ran a restaurant that was frequented by many of the leading bebop musicians...

 (1959), Abbey Lincoln

Abbey Lincoln

Anna Marie Wooldridge , better known by her stage name Abbey Lincoln, was a jazz vocalist, songwriter, and actress. Lincoln was unusual in that she wrote and performed her own compositions, expanding the expectations of jazz audiences.-Biography:Born in Chicago, Illinois, she was one of many...

 (1959-60), Charles Mingus

Charles Mingus

Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...

, and Kenny Dorham

Kenny Dorham

McKinley Howard Dorham was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and composer born in Fairfield, Texas. Dorham's talent is frequently lauded by critics and other musicians, but he never received the kind of attention from the jazz establishment that many of his peers did...

.

In the 1960s Euell worked in Harlem

Harlem

Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...

 directing an arts program (1962-66) and then returned to school, receiving a Ph.D. from George Washington University

George Washington University

The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...

 in 1973. He was Assistant Secretary for Public Service at the Smithsonian from 1970-1982, and was partly responsible for the institution's increasing interest in jazz history. From 1983 to 1988 he directed the Oakland Museum History-Arts-Science and from 1991-95 was director of the Louis Armstrong House

Louis Armstrong House

The Louis Armstrong House was the home of Louis Armstrong and his wife Lucille between 1943 and 1971 when he died. Lucille gave it to the city in order to create a museum focused on her husband...

. He returned to semiregular performing in the 1980s and 1990s.

Euell's son is a sociology professor at Ithaca College

Ithaca College

Ithaca College is a private college located on the South Hill of Ithaca, New York. The school was founded by William Egbert in 1892 as a conservatory of music. The college has a strong liberal arts core, but also offers several pre-professional programs and some graduate programs. The college is...

.

As sideman

With Mal Waldron

Mal Waldron

Malcolm Earl Waldron was an American jazz and world music pianist and composer, born in New York City.Like his contemporaries, Waldron's roots lie chiefly in the hard bop and post-bop genres of the New York club scene of the 1950s; but with time, he gravitated more towards free jazz and composition...

• Mal-1
  Mal-1
  Mal-1 is the debut album by American jazz pianist Mal Waldron recorded in 1956 and released on the Prestige label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Jim Todd awarded the album 4 stars stating "Mal Waldron's recording debut as a leader presents the pianist with his many gifts already well...
  
  (Prestige, 1956)
• Mal/2 (Prestige, 1957)
• Mal/3: Sounds
  Mal/3: Sounds
  Mal/3: Sounds is an album by American jazz pianist Mal Waldron recorded in 1958 and released on the Prestige label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow awarded the album 3 stars stating "The music is not essential but holds one's interest throughout".-Track listing:# "Tension" —...
  
  (Prestige, 1958)