Daily Dose Of Jazz…

James Graham Collier OBE was born on  February 21, 1937 in Tynemouth, Northumberland, England. After leaving school he joined the British Army as a musician, spending three years in Hong Kong, China. He subsequently won a Down Beat magazine scholarship to the Berklee School of Music, in Boston, Massachusetts studying with Herb Pomeroy.

After graduating in 1963 he returned to Britain and founded the first version of an ensemble devoted to his own compositions, Graham Collier Music, which included Kenny Wheeler, Harry Beckett and John Surman. Later configurations included Karl Jenkins, Mike Gibbs, Art Themen and many other notable musicians.

As the first recipient of an Arts Council bursary for jazz, Graham was commissioned by festivals, groups and broadcasters across Europe, North America, Australia and the Far East. He recorded nineteen albums, worked on stage plays, musicals, documentary and fiction film, and radio drama productions.

Collier was an author and educator, writing seven books on jazz, giving lectures and workshops around the world. He launched the jazz degree course at London’s Royal Academy of Music and was its artistic director until he resigned in 1999, so he could concentrate on his own music.

Bassist, composer and bandleader Graham Collier, who along with a group of jazz educators formed the International Association of Schools of Jazz, transitioned from heart failure on September 9, 2011.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Buddy Deppenschmidt was born William Henry Deppenschmidt on February 16, 1936 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father was a saxophonist and bandleader under the name Buddy Williams, but his mother moved him to Richmond, Virginia when he was four.

Self-taught, he started playing drums professionally while in his teens and then went on the road in the western U.S. with the territory band Ronnie Bartley Orchestra. Returning home, he played with local bands and became the drummer for the Newton Thomas Trio through the mid to late Fifties, which was also the touring rhythm section for the Billy Butterfield Quintet. When the Newton Thomas Trio played the Virginia Beach Jazz Festival, it received rave reviews on a bill that included the Dave Brubeck Quartet and the Charlie Byrd Trio. Two nights later, Charlie Byrd came into the Jolly Roger jazz club where Buddy was playing, and offered him the job as drummer with his trio. He played with the trio at the Showboat Lounge in Washington, D.C. from 1959–62.

In February 1961, while on a goodwill tour sponsored by the U.S. State Department, the Charlie Byrd Trio with Byrd on guitar, Keter Betts on bass, and Buddy on drums, they visited 18 countries throughout South and Central Americas, and Mexico. While in Brazil, he spent his free time with local musicians, teaching them jazz and learning bossa nova. It was his idea to record an album combining jazz and bossa nova with Stan Getz.

After Byrd, Deppenschmidt joined the Tee Carson Trio in the early Sixties, then moved to Pennsylvania and formed the Jazz Renaissance, was also the drummer with the John Coates Trio, toured the midwest and west coast with the Bernard Peiffer Trio and studied with drummer Joe Morello.

He’s worked on A Thousand Clowns, Wall Street, Bossa Nova, The Lake House, and Whatever Works movie soundtracks. He’s played with a who’s who list of jazz musicians from Mose Allison and Chet Baker to Coleman Hawkins and Shirley Horn, Phil Woods and more.

Drummer Buddy Deppenschmidt, biographies are in The Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Sixties and The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, transitioned on March 20, 2021 in Pennsylvania ​​from complications of COVID-19. He was 85 years old.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Rahn Burton was born February 10, 1934 in Louisville, Kentucky. He began taking piano lessons at age 13, and worked locally in Louisville before playing his first gigs with Roland Kirk. He toured with Kirk from 1953 to 1959 and recorded with him into the early 1960s, contributing the composition Jack the Ripper to the 1960 release Introducing Roland Kirk.

Moving on to play local gigs in New York City and Syracuse, New York for a short time in the early 1960s, he returned to local playing in Louisville. During 1964-65 he played organ in George Adams’s touring ensemble, and played briefly with Sirone around the same time.

1967 saw Burton re-joining Roland Kirk’s group, playing with him at the 1968 Newport Jazz Festival and on several recordings through 1973. He also founded his own ensemble, African American Connection, which included Roland Alexander, Bob Cunningham, Ricky Ford, and Hannibal Marvin Peterson.

He recorded extensively as a sideman in the 1970s and 1980s with George Adams and Hannibal Peterson, Carlos Garnett, Beaver Harris, Jemeel Moondoc, Charlie Rouse, Leon Thomas and Stanley Turrentine. His associations in the 1990s included work in Austria with Nicholas Simion and a trio recording in 1992 with Walter Booker and Jimmy Cobb.

Pianist Rahn Burton, who was also known as Ron Burton or William Burton, transitioned on  January 25, 2013 in Manhattan, New York.

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Three Wishes

When the Baroness inquired of Spanky De Brest what, if granted, his three wishes would be he answered her with:

1. “I want my whole salary from Birdland!”
2. “To be situated in New York, happily with my family.”
3. “Play my bass as well as God can allow me to.”

*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats ~ Compiled and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Leslie Bricusse was born on January 29, 1931 in Pinner, Middlesex, England. He was educated at University College School in London, England and then at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge, he was Secretary then President of Footlights and during his college drama career he began working for actress, singer and comedian Beatrice Lillie.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Bricusse enjoyed a fruitful partnership with Anthony Newley. They wrote the musical Stop the World – I Want to Get Off  in 1961,that became a film in 1966. In 1965 they wrote the show The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd and music for the film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory in 1971. For the latter, they received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song Score.

Solely as a lyricist, Leslie collaborated with composer Cyril Ornadel on Pickwick, Henry Mancini on Victor/Victoria, Tom and Jerry: The Movie, and with John Williams on Hook. As composer and lyricist he scored the film, Doctor Dolittle and received a 1967 Academy Award for Best Original Song for Talk To The Animals, and Goodbye, Mr. Chips in 1969.

Of his many songs a few that have become jazz standards are What Kind of Fool Am I?, Who Can I Turn To?, Feeling Good, My Kind of Girl, Two For The Road, If I Ruled the World, Can You Read My Mind, When I Look in Your Eyes, and Pure Imagination. 

In 2015, he released his memoir, Pure Imagination: A Sorta-Biography, with a foreword by Elton John. Composer, lyricist, and playwright Leslie Bricusse, who was awarded the Order of the British Empire, transitioned on October 19, 2021 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France at the age of 90.

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