Born in Sicily, his career as a pianist began in the early 1940s, when he played with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker and contributed to the development of bebop.

[2] During the 1950s, Wallington's quintet including rising stars Donald Byrd, Jackie McLean, and Phil Woods, but in 1960 he retired and moved to Florida to work for a family business.

[6] His father sang opera and introduced his son to classical music, but after listening to saxophonist Lester Young[6] and Count Basie's orchestra, he "was smitten with the expressive and emotional power of jazz.

[10] Dizzy Gillespie, a young trumpet player who was developing the style of jazz that came to be known as bebop, formed a band with bassist Oscar Pettiford, and drummer Max Roach to play regularly at the Onyx Club in 1943.

[14] In 1952, baritone saxophonist Mulligan formed a jazz group in Los Angeles, California with young trumpet player Chet Baker.

Again working with arranger Quincy Jones, his ensemble's first recording session in May included trumpeter Dave Burns, trombonist Jimmy Cleveland, tenor saxophonist Frank Foster, and multi-instrumentalist Danny Bank on baritone saxophone and flute.

[2] Two sessions later in the year for Norgran Records included a trio and strings, respectively, and presented another opportunity for Wallington to test the right instrumentation and stylistic approach for a permanent ensemble.

Presented with records by Jutta Hipp, Kenny Dorham, Ruby Braff, Art Tatum, and Mary Lou Williams, he singled out Bud Powell, Oscar Peterson, and Thelonious Monk for praise.

[18] Wallington substituted McLean for Phil Woods and Chambers for Teddy Kotick and took his reformed quintet to the famous Van Gelder Studio to record Jazz for the Carriage Trade in January 1956.

[19] In 1960, Wallington stopped playing music and moved to Florida[6] to work in the family air conditioning business,[3] citing the stress of endless touring.

[1] Described by Cook and Morton's Penguin Guide to Jazz as "the underrated master of bebop piano," his speed was called "breathtaking," and "his melodies unspooling in long, unbroken lines.

"[4] His later quintet work has been classified as "somewhere amongst Art Blakey's early Jazz Messengers, Hank Mobley, Sonny Stitt, Johnny Griffin, and ... mid-'50s Mingus.