Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Rufus Harley, Jr. was born near Raleigh, North Carolina on May 20, 1936 of mixed Cherokee and African ancestry but at an early age his mother relocated with him to North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At age 12 he began playing the C melody saxophone and the trumpet and ten years later he was studying saxophone, flute, oboe and clarinet. His interest in the bagpipes came when he saw the Black Watch perform during President Kennedy’s funeral in 1963. Traveling to New York he bought a set in a pawnshop for $120 and quickly adapted it to the idiom of jazz, blues and funk.
Harley made his Scottish great Highland bagpipe debut in 1964 and over the next five years released four albums for Atlantic records and recorded as a sideman during that period and into the seventies with Herbie Mann, Sonny Stitt, and Sonny Rollins. He would later record with Laurie Anderson on “Big Science” in 1982, The Roots album “Do You Want More?!!!??!” in 1995 as a result of an appearance on the Arsenio Hall show.
Rufus often wore Scottish garb including kilt and a Viking style horned helmet. After watching him on television, a Scottish family gave him his MacLeod tartan, which he wore for the rest of his life. His bagpipe technique was unorthodox in that he placed the drones over his right shoulder instead of his left and favored a B-flat minor key.
Residing in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, when not working as a maintenance worker for the housing authority, Rufus gave presentations in area public schools, toured around the world, appeared on television shows like “What’s My Line” and “To Tell The Truth”, and had small roles in films “You’re A Big Boy Now” and “Eddie and the Cruisers”. In addition to bagpipes when recording, he would play tenor saxophone, electric soprano saxophone and flute.
Rufus Harley passed away at Philadelphia’s Albert Einstein Medical Center on July 31, 2006 of prostate cancer. In memoriam a documentary titled “Pipes of Peace” gives an intimate profile and a posthumous retrospective “Courage – The Atlantic Recordings containing all four albums was released in a limited edition.