Joseph Leslie "Joe" Sample (born February 1, 1939 in Houston, Texas) is an American pianist, keyboard player and composer. He was one of the founding members of the Jazz Crusaders, the band which became simply The Crusaders in 1971, and remained a part of the group until its final album in 1991 (not including the 2003 reunion album "Rural Renewal").

Sample began playing the piano when he was five years old. Since the early 1980`s, he has enjoyed a successful solo career and has guested on many recordings by other performers and groups, including Miles Davis, George Benson, Jimmy Witherspoon, B.B. King, Eric Clapton and Steely Dan. Although it received less radio airplay than several of his other releases, Invitation is considered by many to be his finest solo recording to date.[citation needed]

Some of his works are featured on The Weather Channel`s Local On The 8s, and Nicole Kidman sang his song "One Day I`ll Fly Away" in the Baz Luhrmann film Moulin Rouge!

Life`s Work

An artist who has flourished in both the artistic world of jazz and in the popular genres of funk and R&B, pianist Joe Sample has rejected artificial genre divisions. "I detest the separation that has gone on," he told the San Diego Union-Tribune. "[African-American musical styles] all came out of our spirituality, out of the church. When people say `Are you a jazz musician?,` I say, `No, I`m a jazz-gospel-and-blues musician." Whatever label was placed on his music, Sample had a down-to-earth style that both attracted wide audiences and commanded the respect of listeners focused on his musicianship.

Born on February 1, 1939, in Houston, Texas, Joe Sample grew up in a fertile musical crescent of the United States. "There was a migration from Louisiana into southeastern Texas during the 1920s because of flooding," he explained to the San Diego Union-Tribune. "So they moved over to the higher ground, and I grew up in a Creole neighborhood hearing zydeco and Louis Armstrong." He started playing the piano at age five, and he incorporated a range of local traditions into his music: jazz, gospel, blues, and even Latin and classical forms.

Escaped Realities of Segregation through Music

Sample explained a deeper motivation for his mastery of the piano in a statement reproduced on the Web site of agent Richard De La Font. "I grew up in a time and place where segregation was an acceptable way of life, and for me the piano was the only place I could run for an act of healing," he stated. "I still feel that expressing myself this way is my great sanctuary. I would like my legacy to be not only that I reflected the times in which I lived, but also that my music had the power to help heal people`s pain the way it has healed mine."

In high school in the 1950s, Sample teamed up with two friends, saxophonist Wilton Felder and drummer Nesbert "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. The Swingsters changed their name first to the Modern Jazz Sextet and then to the Jazz Crusaders, in emulation of one of the leading progressive jazz bands of the day, Art Blakey`s Jazz Messengers. Sample never took a degree from the university; instead in 1960, he and the Jazz Crusaders made the move from Houston to Los Angeles.

The group quickly found opportunities on the West Coast, making i