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-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Fwd: Rufus Harley 1936-2006
Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2006 08:59:56 -0700 (PDT)
From: Transparency <meridianavenue@...>
To: kraiggrady@...

--- GEORGE MANNEY <gsound@...> wrote:

> Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2006 11:05:44 -0400
> From: GEORGE MANNEY <gsound@...>
> Subject: Rufus Harley 1936-2006
> To: meridianavenue@...
> > Our dear friend and master musician Rufus Harley has
> passed away on > July 31, 2006 of prostate cancer.
> > View a photo of Rufus from our TLA, Brotherly Love
> All-Star Show here: > http://www.geosound.org/all-star-rufus-2.htm
> > View a Video clip of Rufus here:
> http://www.geosound.org/video.htm and > scroll down to the Rufus Harley photo.
> > Peace Brother Rufus...
> Geo Sound & B.L.A.S.T. - Brotherly Love All-Star
> Tour
> www.geosound.org
> www.brotherlylovetour.com
> > From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
> Rufus Harley (May 20, 1936 - July 31, 2006) was an
> American jazz > musician of mixed Cherokee and African ancestry born
> in Raleigh, North > Carolina. Although he began as a saxophonist and
> flutist, Harley was > the first jazz musician to adopt the Scottish great
> highland bagpipe as > his primary instrument. He became inspired to learn
> the instrument > after seeing the Black Watch perform in John F.
> Kennedy's funeral > procession in November 1963, quickly adapting the
> instrument to the > idioms of jazz and funk.
> Harley released several recordings as leader on the
> Atlantic label, and > also recorded with Laurie Anderson (appearing on her
> 1982 album Big > Science), and The Roots (on their 1995 album Do You
> Want More?!!!??!).
> Harley lived for most of his life in Philadelphia,
> Pennsylvania. He > died there on July 31, 2006 of prostate cancer
> > Remembering a Phila.-based jazz pioneer
> By Daniel Rubin
> Inquirer Staff Writer
>
> On Tuesday night WRTI-FM's Bob Perkins announced the
> death that morning > of a Philly original. Rufus Harley, 70, is credited
> as the first jazz > musician to pick the Scottish bagpipes as his
> instrument.
> > You might have heard his distinctive drone on CDs by
> The Roots (Do You > Want More?!!!??!) and Laurie Anderson (Big Science).
> If you ever saw a > picture of him, it would stick. He cut a distinctive
> swath.
> > So did his music.
> > I talked to his son, Messiah Harley, the trumpeter,
> yesterday morning. > He said his father had prostate cancer, but never
> let on to anyone that > he was hurting.
> > "He was a soldier," the son said. "I have no other
> way to explain it. > He never let his sickness stop him from playing, and
> from making people > happy. He was always concerned about the people."
> > Messiah Harley said he drove his father to
> Germantown Hospital Monday > evening, a few hours after his last show. Doctors
> transferred him to > Einstein, his son said, when it was apparent he was
> so sick.
> > "All he was talking about was, 'Messiah, come and
> get me. I have a gig > to get to in Baltimore.' He tried to sit up and his
> heart stopped." > Funeral arrangements are pending, his son said.
> > Joel Dorn, the jazz producer, was a Philly DJ at
> WHAT between 1961 and > 1967. He recalled the day when Rufus Harley called,
> hoping to get his > attention:
> > "He said he was a local musician who played jazz on
> the bagpipes, he > made a record, and would I listen to it. I said,
> 'Sure.' He came by the > radio station with an acetate, a little metal record
> you could get 10 > or 12 plays out of, and he played me 'The Bagpipe
> Blues.' I loved it... > . It swung."
> > Dorn recorded an album with Harley, which included
> that track, for > Atlantic Records. It sold so well, Dorn says, that
> label founder Nesuhi > Ertegun called the part-time producer to New York
> and offered him a > full-time job. Dorn wound up producing four albums
> for Harley at > Atlantic.
> > "There are a couple of things about Rufus," Dorn
> said. "First of all, > he was a good musician - a good tenor player, a good
> flute player, a > good composer. More than anything, he was a sweet
> guy. He didn't have > any bad bones. He was totally committed to his work
> on the bagpipes and > he took a lot of heat for it. For every Sonny
> Rollins or Sonny Stitt > who recorded with him, there were always those
> snotty jazz critics who > looked down on anything left of center."
> > Perkins said by phone yesterday, "He was a
> relentless player and a > studier. He would go anywhere and play anywhere. He
> traveled overseas > extensively - he takes his own version of the
> Liberty Bell to see > different people in different countries. I guess he
> should have lived > there. Maybe they would have appreciated him more."
> > Shaun Mullen, at the blog Kiko's House, wrote this
> Tuesday night about > Harley:
> > "Jazz bagpipes would seem to be an acquired taste,
> but I fell into > Harley's funky style immediately and he became a
> lifelong favorite whom > I caught several times at Ortlieb's Brewhaus in
> Philadelphia."
> > A 2001 profile in the City Paper described what
> moved the Germantown > resident to pick up the pipes:
> > "In November 1963, the winter of America's
> discontent, a young > Philadelphia musician named Rufus Harley watched
> John F. Kennedy's > funeral on television. While a nation mourned, the
> sound of the > bagpipes from the funeral procession sent Harley's
> spirits soaring.
> > "He attempted to replicate the sound on his sax;
> unsatisfied, he > scoured the area for a set of bagpipes. He called
> around to every music > store in the region, but couldn't score them. It
> wasn't until he made > his first-ever trip to New York City that he found
> his pipes. In a > small pawnshop he spent $120, that month's entire
> mortgage money, and > altered the course of jazz forever."
> > Harley was born in North Carolina in 1936, of
> African American and > Cherokee heritage. He moved to Philadelphia as a
> small boy. In high > school he played several wind instruments. He
> recorded several albums > on the Atlantic label, with Scotch and Soul in 1966
> the first to > command critical notice. You haven't lived until
> you've heard Harley's > cover of the Byrds' "Eight Miles High."
> > Once asked how to play the jazz bagpipes, Harley
> answered:
> > "You play off the air that's in there."
> > I called his home yesterday afternoon. No one
> answered. Instead > bagpipes, glorious bagpipes, swelled to life, then a
> hale voice > announced, "You have reached Rufus Harley, the
> International Ambassador > and Messenger of Freedom." He plays on.
> > Blinq | Online Extra
> > Listen to clips of Rufus Harley on the bagpipe at > http://go.philly.com/rufus

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