Joe Sample
American jazz musician and composer (1939–2014)
Joseph Leslie Sample (February 1, 1939 – September 12, 2014) was an American jazz keyboardist and composer. He was one of the founding members of The Jazz Crusaders in 1960, whose name was shortened to "The Crusaders" in 1971. He remained a part of the group until its final album in 1991, and also the 2003 reunion album Rural Renewal.
Beginning in the late 1960s, he saw a successful solo career and guested on several recordings by other acts, including Miles Davis, George Benson, Jimmy Witherspoon, Michael Franks, B. B. King, Eric Clapton, Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell, Anita Baker, Herb Alpert, and The Supremes. Sample incorporated gospel, blues, jazz, latin, and classical forms into his music.
Biography
Sample was born in Houston, Texas, the youngest son of Alexander Sample, a mail-carrier, and Agatha (née Osborne) Sample, a seamstress. Sample began to play the piano at the age of five. He was a student of the organist and pianist (Theodore or T.) Curtis Mayo.
In high school in the 1950s, Sample teamed up with friends saxophonist Wilton Felder and drummer "Stix" Hooper to form a group called the Swingsters. While studying piano at Texas Southern University, Sample met and added trombonist Wayne Henderson and several other players to the Swingsters, which became the Modern Jazz Sextet and then the Jazz Crusaders, in emulation of one of the leading progressive jazz bands of the day, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.
The public source identifies “Joe Sample” as american jazz musician and composer (1939–2014). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Sample, American and jazz.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1339524. VIAF identifies the subject as 61735410. The Library of Congress control number is nr90021621. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1939, 2014, 1960 and 1971.
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This entry incorporates text from “Joe Sample” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.