Jazz pianist in ’50s and ’60s, known for his rhythmic style

Horace Parlan, a jazz pianist who overcame limited use of his right hand to develop a distinctive punchy style that made him a stalwart of the hard-bop movement of the 1950s and 1960s and a notable collaborator with such stars as Charles Mingus and Dexter Gordon, died Feb. 23 at a nursing home in Naestved, Denmark. He was 86.

The death was confirmed by Danish jazz scholar Frank Buchmann-Moller. Parlan, who had lost his eyesight in recent years, had a variety of illnesses, including diabetes.

Stricken with polio at age 5 and partially paralyzed on his right side, Parlan was encouraged by his parents to take up piano as a form of therapy. He eventually recovered partial use of three fingers on his right hand and learned to compensate by using his left hand to play textured chords and rolling arpeggios.

His simplified, rhythmic style was well suited to the blues-based, hard-bop jazz emerging in the 1950s. Critic Harvey Pekar, writing in Jazz Times magazine in 2001, noted that Parlan had a “strong blues feeling” in his work and added that “you’d have to go a long way to find a jazz pianist who uses gospel elements so effectively.”

Parlan gained early renown for his spirited playing in his native Pittsburgh and while working alongside saxophonist Sonny Stitt in the mid-1950s in Washington.

During the early 1960s, Parlan was in demand as a top sideman and became a leader his own right.

Horace Louis Parlan was born Jan. 19, 1931, in Pittsburgh. He was adopted by a minister and his family and was exposed to church music throughout his youth.

He was about 12 when he began to study with James Miller. Miller encouraged Parlan to develop his left hand, which led to his idiosyncratic style, with his right hand often pointed at a sharp angle toward the keyboard.

An early marriage ended in divorce. He lived for years in the Danish countryside with his second wife, Norma Parlan, who died four years ago.