A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians. The terms jazz band, jazz ensemble, jazz orchestra, stage band, society band, and dance band may describe this type of ensemble in particular contexts.

Instrumentation[link]

Typical seating diagram for a big band.

A standard 17-piece instrumentation evolved in the big-bands, for which many commercial arrangements are available. This instrumentation consists of five saxophones (most often two altos, two tenors, and one baritone), four trumpets, four trombones (often including one bass trombone) and a four-piece rhythm section (composed of drums, acoustic bass or electric bass, piano and guitar).

However, variants to this instrumentation are common. Composers, arrangers, and bandleaders have used sections with more or fewer players, and additional instruments, such as valve trombone, baritone horn/euphonium (both of which are usually used in place of or with trombones), vibes, bass clarinet, French horn, tuba, banjo, accordion and strings (violin, viola, cello). Male and female vocalists have also joined big bands to perform particular arrangements. In recent years synthesizers and / or electronic keyboards have been added, often replacing the piano.

Some arrangements call for saxophone players to double on other woodwind instruments, such as flute, clarinet, soprano sax, or bass clarinet. Trumpet and trombone players are sometimes called upon to use various sound-changing mutes, and trumpet players sometimes need to play flugelhorn. In some rhythm sections, a guitar player is omitted. Players in the rhythm section may be called upon to play acoustic or electric instruments. Latin or other auxiliary percussion instruments may be added, such as cowbells, congas, tambourines, or triangles.

History and style[link]

There are two distinct periods in the history of popular bands. Beginning in the mid-1920s, big bands, then typically consisting of 10–25 pieces, came to dominate popular music. At that time they usually played a form of jazz that involved very little improvisation, which included a string section with violins, which was dropped after the introduction of swing in 1935. The dance form of jazz was characterized by a sweet and romantic melody. Typical of the genre were such popular artists as Paul Whiteman, Ted Lewis, Harry Reser, Leo Reisman, Abe Lyman, Nat Shilkret, George Olsen, Ben Bernie, Bob Haring, Ben Selvin, Earl Burnett, Gus Arnheim, Henry Halstead, Rudy Vallee, Jean Goldkette, Glen Gray, Isham Jones, Roger Wolfe Kahn, Sam Lanin, James Last, Vincent Lopez, Ben Pollack, Shep Fields and Fred Waring.

Paul Whiteman and his orchestra in 1921

Many of these artists changed styles or retired after the introduction of swing music. Although unashamedly commercial, these bands often featured front-rank jazz musicians—for example Paul Whiteman employed Bix Beiderbecke and Frankie Trumbauer. There were also "all-girl" bands such as "Helen Lewis and Her All-Girl Jazz Syncopators". Lewis and her band, Ben Bernie's band "Ben Bernie and All the Lads", and Roger Wolfe Kahn's band were filmed by Lee De Forest in his Phonofilm sound-on-film process in 1925, in three short films which are now in the Library of Congress film collection.

Towards the end of the 1920s, a new form of Big Band emerged which was more authentically "jazz," in that more space was given to improvised soloing. This form of music never gained the popularity of the dance form of jazz. The few recordings made in this form of jazz were labelled race records and were intended for a limited urban audience. Few white musicians were familiar with this music, Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen and Hoagy Carmichael being notable exceptions. The three major centres in this development were New York City, Chicago and Kansas City. In the former, a sophisticated approach to arranging predominated, first in the work of Don Redman for the Fletcher Henderson band, later in the work of Duke Ellington for his Cotton Club orchestra, and Walter 'Foots' Thomas for Cab Calloway's, Charlie Spivak and His Orchestra, and Mel Tormé's Mel-Tones. Some big ensembles, like the Joe "King" Oliver outfit played a kind of half arranged, half improvised jazz, often relying on “head” arrangements. Other great bands, like the one of Luis Russell became a vehicle for star instrumentalists, in his case Louis Armstrong. There the whole arrangement had to promote all the possibilities of the star, although they often contained very good musicians, like Henry "Red" Allen, J. C. Higginbotham and Charlie Holmes. Others such as Alvino Rey grew popular with shows in New York City and then toured the country sharing their hit songs and new musical styles.

Radio and movies[link]

Earl "Fatha" Hines became the star of Chicago with his Grand Terrace Cafe band and began to broadcast live from The Grand Terrace nightly coast-to-coast across America. Meanwhile in Kansas City and across the Southwest, an earthier, bluesier style was developed by such bandleaders as Benny Moten and, later, by Jay McShann and Jesse Stone. Big band remotes on the major radio networks spread the music from ballrooms and clubs across the country during the 1930s and 1940s, with remote broadcasts from jazz clubs continuing into the 1950s on NBC's Monitor. Radio was a major factor in gaining notice and fame for Benny Goodman, known as the “King of Swing”. Soon, others challenged him, and “the battles of the bands” became a staple at theater performances featuring many groups on one bill.

Big Bands also began to appear in movies in the 1930s right on through to the 1960s. Shep Fields and his orchestra appeared in The Big Broadcast of 1938 for Paramount Pictures while accompanying the actor Bob Hope in the 1930s. Alvino Rey and His Orchestra were featured in films through RKO Pictures during their peak in the early 1940s, such as Sing Your Worries Away.^[3] Fictionalized biographical films of Glenn Miller, Gene Krupa, Benny Goodman, and others were made in the 1950s, as nostalgic tributes to the glory years.

Rise and fall of swing[link]

Benny Goodman and Peggy Lee

Swing music began in the 1920s, distinguished by a more supple feel than the more literal 4/4 of earlier jazz and a walking bass—Walter Page is often credited with developing this, though isolated earlier examples exist (e.g., by Wellman Braud on Ellington's Washington Wabble from 1927).

This type of music flourished through the early 1930s, although there was little mass audience for it until around 1936. Up until that time, it was viewed with ridicule and looked upon as a curiosity. After 1935, big bands rose to prominence playing swing music and held a major role in defining swing as a distinctive style. Western Swing musicians also formed very popular big bands during the same period.^[4][5][6]

There was a considerable range of styles among the hundreds of popular bands. Many of the better known bands reflected the individuality of the bandleader, the lead arranger, and the personnel. Count Basie played a relaxed propulsive swing, Bob Crosby more of a dixieland style, Benny Goodman a hard driving swing, and Duke Ellington’s compositions were varied and sophisticated. Many bands featured strong instrumentalists, whose sounds dominated, such as the clarinets of Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw and Woody Herman, the trombone of Jack Teagarden, the trumpet of Harry James, the drums of Gene Krupa, and the vibes of Lionel Hampton. The popularity of many of the major bands was amplified by star vocalists, such as Frank Sinatra with Tommy Dorsey, Helen O'Connell and Bob Eberly with Jimmy Dorsey, Ella Fitzgerald with Chick Webb, Billie Holiday and Jimmy Rushing with Count Basie, Dick Haymes and Helen Forrest with Harry James, Doris Day with Les Brown, Toni Arden and Ken Curtis with Shep Fields and Peggy Lee with Benny Goodman. Some bands were society bands that relied on strong ensembles but little on soloists or vocalists, such as the bands of Guy Lombardo and Paul Whiteman.

By this time the big band was such a dominant force in jazz that the older generation found they either had to adapt to it or simply retire—with no market for small-group recordings (made worse by a depression-era industry reluctant to take risks), some musicians such as Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines fronted their own bands, while others, like Jelly Roll Morton and King Oliver, lapsed into obscurity.

The major African American bands of the 1930s included, apart from the bands led by Ellington, Hines and Calloway, were those of Count Basie, Jimmie Lunceford, and Chick Webb.

Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, Shep Fields and, later, Glenn Miller far eclipsed other bands in popularity from the middle of the decade. Also popular was the Casa Loma Orchestra and Benny Goodman’s early band.

During World War II Earl Hines and Billy Eckstine led bands whose soloists figured as the early performers of Bebop. For a few years after the war, Dizzy Gillespie and Lionel Hampton led Bebop-oriented big bands.

Glenn Miller

White teenagers and young adults were the principal fans of the Big Bands in the late 1930s and early 1940s. They danced to recordings and the radio, and attended live concerts whenever they could. They were knowledgeable and often biased toward their favorite bands and songs, and sometimes worshipful of the famous soloists and vocalists. Many bands toured the country in grueling one-night stands to reach out to their fans. Traveling conditions and lodging were often difficult, in part due to segregation in most parts of the United States, and the personnel often had to perform on little sleep and food. Apart from the star soloists, many personnel received low wages and would abandon the tour and go home if bookings fell through. Personal problems and intra-band discord could affect the playing of the group. Drinking and addictions were common. Turnover was frequent in many bands, and top soloists were often lured away to better contracts. Sometimes bandstands were too small, public address systems inadequate, pianos out of tune. Successful bandleaders dealt with all these hazards of touring to hold their bands together—some with rigid discipline (Glenn Miller), some with canny psychology (Duke Ellington).

Big Bands played a major role in lifting morale during World War II. Many band members served in the military and toured with USO troupes at the front, with Glenn Miller losing his life while traveling between troop shows. Many bands suffered from the loss of personnel and quality declined at home during the war years. A recording ban from an ill-timed recording strike in 1942 worsened the situation. Vocalists began to strike out on their own and by the end of the war, swing was giving way to less danceable music including bebop. Many of the great swing bands broke up as tastes changed.

Since 1945[link]

As jazz evolved and expanded in new directions, major band performances of note did occur from the 1950s to the 1970s. Noteworthy performers included: Dizzy Gillespie, Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich, Gil Evans, Stan Kenton, Johnny Richards, Sun Ra, Gary MacFarland, Charles Mingus, Oliver Nelson, Carla Bley, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Big Band, Sam Rivers, Don Ellis, Toshiko Akiyoshi – Lew Tabackin Big Band, Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and Anthony Braxton.

Later bandleaders pioneered the performance of various Brazilian and Afro-Cuban styles with the traditional big band instrumentation, and big bands led by arranger Gil Evans, saxophonist John Coltrane (on the album Ascension from 1965) and electric bassist Jaco Pastorius introduced cool jazz, free jazz and jazz fusion, respectively, to the big band domain. Modern big bands can be found playing all styles of jazz music. Some large contemporary European jazz ensembles play mostly avant-garde jazz using the instrumentation of the big bands. Examples include the Vienna Art Orchestra, founded in 1977, and the Italian Instabile Orchestra, active in the 1990s. In the late 1990s, swing made a comeback in the US. The Lindy Hop has taken hold on both coasts, and many younger people took an interest in big band styles again. The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis is the resident orchestra of Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC). The JALC Orchestra currently tours internationally, promoting the big band sound.

African "Afrobeat" big bands have existed from 1970 to the present when Fela Kuti of Nigeria, fused big band jazz with Yoruba tribal rhythms, highlife, and American James Brown funk music. As of 2008^[update] there are over 40 working afrobeat big bands including Antibalas, Chicago Afrobeat Project, Chopteeth, Femi Kuti, and Seun Kuti.

Big Band Arrangements[link]

In contrast to jazz "combos," in which musical performances are largely improvised, big band music is primarily crafted in advance by an arranger.

Typical big band arrangements of the swing period are written in strophic form with the same phrase and chord structure repeated several times. Each iteration, or chorus, most commonly follows Twelve bar blues form or Thirty-two-bar (AABA) song form. The first chorus of an arrangement typically introduces the melody, and is followed by subsequent choruses of development. This development may take the form of improvised solos, written soli sections, and shout choruses.

An arrangement's first chorus is sometimes preceded by an introduction, which may be as short as a few measures or may extend to chorus of its own. Many arrangements contain an interlude, often similar in content to the introduction, inserted between some or all choruses. Other methods of embellishing the form include modulations and cadential extensions.

See also[link]

	Jazz portal
	Music portal

• Big band remote
• British dance band
• List of American big band bandleaders
• List of big bands
• List of British big band leaders
• List of experimental big bands
• Swing (jazz performance style)
• Territory band

References[link]

External references[link]

• William Russo, Composing for the Jazz Orchestra University of Chicago Press, Library of Congress no. 61-8642
• George T. Simon, The Big Bands, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1967, Library of Congress no. 67-26643

Benny Goodman
from the film Stage Door Canteen (1943)
Background information
Birth name	Benjamin David Goodman
Also known as	"King of Swing", "The Professor", "Patriarch of the Clarinet", "Swing's Senior Statesman"
Born	(1909-05-30)May 30, 1909
Origin	Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died	June 13, 1986(1986-06-13) (aged 77)
Genres	Swing, big band
Occupations	Musician, bandleader, songwriter
Instruments	Clarinet
Years active	1926–1986

Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman^[1] (May 30, 1909 – June 13, 1986) was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".

In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America. His January 16, 1938 concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City is described by critic Bruce Eder as "the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history: jazz's 'coming out' party to the world of 'respectable' music."^[2]

Goodman's bands launched the careers of many major names in jazz, and during an era of segregation, he also led one of the first well-known racially-integrated jazz groups. Goodman continued to perform to nearly the end of his life, including exploring his interest in classical music.

Childhood and early years[link]

Goodman was born in Chicago, the ninth of twelve children of poor Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire,^[1] who lived in the Maxwell Street neighborhood. His father was David Goodman, a tailor from Warsaw; his mother was Dora Grisinsky^[1] (from Kaunas, Lithuania). His parents met in Baltimore, Maryland, and moved to Chicago before Benny was born.^[3]

When Benny was 10, his father enrolled him and two of his older brothers in music lessons at the Kehelah Jacob Synagogue. The next year he joined the boys club band at Jane Addams' Hull House, where he received lessons from director James Sylvester. He also received two years of instruction from the classically trained clarinetist Franz Schoepp.^[4] His early influences were New Orleans jazz clarinetists working in Chicago, notably Johnny Dodds, Leon Roppolo, and Jimmy Noone.^[3] Goodman learned quickly, becoming a strong player at an early age: he was soon playing professionally in various bands.

Goodman attended Lewis Institute (now Illinois Institute of Technology) in 1924 as a high school sophomore, while also playing the clarinet in a dance hall band. (He was awarded an honorary LL.D. from IIT in 1968.) When Goodman was 16, he joined one of Chicago's top bands, the Ben Pollack Orchestra, with which he made his first recordings in 1926.^[3]

He made his first record on Vocalion under his own name two years later. Goodman recorded with the regular Pollack band and smaller groups drawn from the orchestra through 1929. The side sessions produced scores of sides recorded for the various dimestore record labels under an array of group names, including Mills' Musical Clowns, Goody's Good Timers, The Hotsy Totsy Gang, Jimmy Backen's Toe Ticklers, Dixie Daisies, and Kentucky Grasshoppers.

Goodman's father, David, was a working-class immigrant about whom Benny said (interview, Downbeat, February 8, 1956); "...Pop worked in the stockyards, shoveling lard in its unrefined state. He had those boots, and he'd come home at the end of the day exhausted, stinking to high heaven, and when he walked in it made me sick. I couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand the idea of Pop every day standing in that stuff, shoveling it around".

On December 9, 1926, David Goodman was killed in a traffic accident. Benny had recently joined the Pollack band and was urging his father to retire, since he and his brother (Harry) were now doing well as professional musicians. According to James Lincoln Collier, "Pop looked Benny in the eye and said, 'Benny, you take care of yourself, I'll take care of myself.'" Collier continues: "It was an unhappy choice. Not long afterwards, as he was stepping down from a streetcar—according to one story—he was struck by a car. He never regained consciousness and died in the hospital the next day. It was a bitter blow to the family, and it haunted Benny to the end that his father had not lived to see the success he, and some of the others, made of themselves."^[5] "Benny described his father's death as 'the saddest thing that ever happened in our family.'"^[6]

Career[link]

Goodman left for New York City and became a successful session musician during the late 1920s and early 1930s (mostly with Ben Pollack's band between 1926 and 1929). A notable March 21, 1928 Victor session found Goodman alongside Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, and Joe Venuti in the All-Star Orchestra, directed by Nat Shilkret.^[7][8][9] He played with the nationally known bands of Ben Selvin, Red Nichols, Isham Jones (although he is not on any of Jones's records), and Ted Lewis. He recorded sides for Brunswick under the name Bennie Goodman's Boys, a band that featured Glenn Miller. In 1928, Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller wrote the instrumental "Room 1411", which was released as a Brunswick 78.^[10] He also recorded musical soundtracks for movie shorts; fans believe that Benny Goodman's clarinet can be heard on the soundtrack of One A. M., a Charlie Chaplin comedy re-released to theaters in 1934.

During this period as a successful session musician, John Hammond arranged for a series of jazz sides recorded for and issued on Columbia starting in 1933 and continuing until his signing with Victor in 1935, during his success on radio. There were also a number of commercial studio sides recorded for Melotone Records between late 1930 and mid-1931 under Goodman's name. The all-star Columbia sides featured Jack Teagarden, Joe Sullivan, Dick McDonough, Arthur Schutt, Gene Krupa, Teddy Wilson, Coleman Hawkins (for 1 session), and vocalists Jack Teagarden and Mildred Bailey, and the first two recorded vocals by a young Billie Holiday.

In 1934 Goodman auditioned for NBC's Let's Dance, a well-regarded three-hour weekly radio program that featured various styles of dance music. His familiar theme song by that title was based on Invitation to the Dance by Carl Maria von Weber. Since he needed new arrangements every week for the show, his agent, John Hammond, suggested that he purchase "hot" (swing) arrangements from Fletcher Henderson, an African-American musician from Atlanta who had New York's most popular African-American band in the 1920s and early 1930s.^[3]

Goodman, a wise businessman, helped Henderson in 1929 when the stock market crashed. He purchased all of Henderson's song books, and hired Henderson's band members to teach his musicians how to play the music.^[11]

In early 1935, Goodman and his band were one of three bands (the others were Xavier Cugat and "Kel Murray" [r.n. Murray Kellner]) featured on Let's Dance where they played arrangements by Henderson along with hits such as "Get Happy" and "Jingle Bells" from composer and arranger Spud Murphy.^[12] Goodman's portion of the program from New York, at 12:30 a.m. Eastern Time, aired too late to attract a large East Coast audience. However, unknown to him, the time slot gave him an avid following on the West Coast (they heard him at 9:30 p.m. Pacific Time). He and his band remained on Let's Dance until May of that year when a strike by employees of the series' sponsor, Nabisco, forced the cancellation of the radio show. An engagement was booked at Manhattan's Roosevelt Grill (filling in for Guy Lombardo), but the crowd there expected 'sweet' music and Goodman's band was unsuccessful.^[13] The band set out on a tour of America in May 1935, but was still poorly received. By August 1935, Goodman found himself with a band that was nearly broke, disillusioned and ready to quit.

Catalyst for the Swing era[link]

An eager crowd of Goodman fans in Oakland

In July 1935, a record of the Goodman band playing the Henderson arrangements of "King Porter Stomp" backed with "Sometimes I'm Happy", Victor 78 25090, had been released to ecstatic reviews in both Down Beat and Melody Maker.^[14] In Pittsburgh at the Stanley Theater some of the kids danced in the aisles.^[15] This had made little impact on the band's tour until August 19 when they arrived in Oakland to play at McFadden's Ballroom.^[16] There, Goodman and his artists Gene Krupa, Bunny Berigan, and Helen Ward found a large crowd of young dancers, raving and cheering the hot music they had heard on the Let's Dance radio show.^[17] Herb Caen wrote that "from the first note, the place was in an uproar."^[18] One night later, at Pismo Beach, the show was another flop, and the band thought the overwhelming reception in Oakland had been a fluke.^[13]

The next night, August 21, 1935 at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles, Goodman and his band began a three-week engagement. On top of the Let's Dance airplay, Al Jarvis had been playing Goodman records on KFWB radio, and Los Angeles fans were primed to hear him in person.^[19] Goodman started the evening with stock arrangements, but after an indifferent response, began the second set with the arrangements by Fletcher Henderson and Spud Murphy. According to Willard Alexander, the band's booking agent, Krupa said "If we're gonna die, Benny, let's die playing our own thing."^[20] The crowd broke into cheers and applause. News reports spread word of the enthusiastic dancing and exciting new music that was happening. Over the course of the engagement, the "Jitterbug" began to appear as a new dance craze,^[21] and radio broadcasts carried the band's performances across the nation.^[13]

The Palomar engagement was such a marked success it is often exaggeratedly described as the beginning of the swing era.^[13] Donald Clarke wrote "It is clear in retrospect that the Swing Era had been waiting to happen, but it was Goodman and his band that touched it off."^[13]

In November 1935 Goodman accepted an invitation to play in Chicago at the Joseph Urban Room at the Congress Hotel. His stay there extended to six months and his popularity was cemented by nationwide radio broadcasts over NBC affiliate stations. While in Chicago, the band recorded If I Could Be With You, Stompin' At The Savoy, and Goody, Goody.^[13] Goodman also played three special concerts produced by jazz aficionado and Chicago socialite Helen Oakley. These "Rhythm Club" concerts at the Congress Hotel included sets in which Goodman and Krupa sat in with Fletcher Henderson's band, perhaps the first racially integrated big band appearance before a paying audience in the United States.^[13] Goodman and Krupa played in a trio with Teddy Wilson on piano. Both combinations were well-received, and Wilson stayed on.

In his 1935–1936 radio broadcasts from Chicago, Goodman was introduced as the "Rajah of Rhythm."^[20] Slingerland Drum Company had been calling Krupa the "King of Swing" as part of a sales campaign, but shortly after Goodman and crew left Chicago in May 1936 to spend the summer filming The Big Broadcast of 1937 in Hollywood, the title "King of Swing" was applied to Goodman by the media.^[13] Goodman left record company RCA for Columbia, following his agent and soon to be brother-in-law John Hammond.

At the end of June 1936, Goodman went to Hollywood, where, on June 30, 1936 his band began CBS's "Camel Caravan," its third, and, according to Connor and Hicks, its greatest of them all, sponsored radio show, co-starring Goodman and his old boss Nat Shilkret.^[7][8] By spring, 1936, bandleader Fletcher Henderson was writing arrangements for Goodman's band. He would disband his own group in 1939 and become a full-time arranger for Goodman. Other noteworthy arrangers in the Goodman band were Jimmy Mundy, 1935 to 1939 (overlapping with Henderson) and Eddie Sauter, the 1940s.

Carnegie Hall concert[link]

In late 1937, Goodman's publicist Wynn Nathanson attempted a publicity stunt by suggesting Goodman and his band should play Carnegie Hall in New York City. If this concert were to take place, then Benny Goodman would be the first jazz bandleader to perform at Carnegie Hall. "Benny Goodman was initially hesitant about the concert, fearing for the worst; however, when his film Hollywood Hotel opened to rave reviews and giant lines, he threw himself into the work. He gave up several dates and insisted on holding rehearsals inside Carnegie Hall to familiarize the band with the lively acoustics."^[23]

The concert was the evening of January 16, 1938. It sold out weeks before, with the capacity 2,760 seats going for the top price of US$2.75 a seat, for the time a very high price.^[23] The concert began with three contemporary numbers from the Goodman band—"Don't Be That Way," "Sometimes I'm Happy," and "One O'Clock Jump." They then played a history of jazz, starting with a Dixieland quartet performing "Sensation Rag." Once again, initial crowd reaction, though polite, was tepid. Then came a jam session on "Honeysuckle Rose" featuring members of the Count Basie and Duke Ellington bands as guests. (The surprise of the session: Goodman handing a solo to Basie's guitarist Freddie Green who was never a featured soloist but earned his reputation as the best rhythm guitarist in the genre—he responded with a striking round of chord improvisations.) As the concert went on, things livened up. The Goodman band and quartet took over the stage and performed the numbers that had already made them famous. Some later trio and quartet numbers were well-received, and a vocal on "Loch Lomond" by Martha Tilton provoked five curtain calls and cries for an encore. The encore forced Goodman to make his only audience announcement for the night, stating that they had no encore prepared but that Martha would return shortly with another number.^[24]

By the time the band got to the climactic piece "Sing, Sing, Sing", success was assured. This performance featured playing by tenor saxophonist Babe Russin, trumpeter Harry James, and Benny Goodman, backed by drummer Gene Krupa. When Goodman finished his solo, he unexpectedly gave a solo to pianist Jess Stacy. "At the Carnegie Hall concert, after the usual theatrics, Jess Stacy was allowed to solo and, given the venue, what followed was appropriate," wrote David Rickert. "Used to just playing rhythm on the tune, he was unprepared for a turn in the spotlight, but what came out of his fingers was a graceful, impressionistic marvel with classical flourishes, yet still managed to swing. It was the best thing he ever did, and it's ironic that such a layered, nuanced performance came at the end of such a chaotic, bombastic tune."^[25]

This concert has been regarded as one of the most significant in jazz history. After years of work by musicians from all over the country, jazz had finally been accepted by mainstream audiences. Recordings were made of this concert, but even by the technology of the day the equipment used was not of the finest quality. Acetate recordings of the concert were made, and aluminum studio masters were also cut.^[23]

Goodman took the newly discovered recording to his record company, Columbia, and a selection was issued on LP. These recordings have not been out of print since they were first issued. In early 1998, the aluminum masters were rediscovered and a new CD set of the concert was released based on these masters. The album released based on those masters went on to be one of the best selling live jazz albums of all time.^{[citation needed]}

Charlie Christian[link]

Pianist/arranger Mary Lou Williams^[27] was a good friend of both Columbia records producer John Hammond and Benny Goodman. She first suggested to John Hammond that he see Charlie Christian.^[28]

Charlie Christian was playing at the Ritz in Oklahoma City where [...] John Hammond heard him in 1939. Hammond recommended him to Benny Goodman, but the band leader wasn't interested. The idea of an electrified guitar didn't appeal, and Goodman didn't care for Christian's flashy style of dressing. Reportedly, Hammond personally installed Christian onstage during a break in a Goodman concert in Beverly Hills. Irritated to see Christian among the band, Goodman struck up "Rose Room", not expecting the guitarist to know the tune. What followed amazed everyone who heard the 45-minute performance.^[29]

Charlie was a hit on the electric guitar and remained in the Benny Goodman Sextet for two years (1939–1941). He wrote many of the group's head arrangements (some of which Goodman took credit for) and was an inspiration to all. The sextet made him famous and provided him with a steady income while Charlie worked on legitimizing, popularizing, revolutionizing, and standardizing the electric guitar as a jazz instrument.^[30]

Charlie Christian's recordings and rehearsal dubs made with Benny Goodman in the early forties are widely known and were released by Columbia.

Beyond swing[link]

Goodman continued his meteoric rise throughout the late 1930s with his big band, his trio and quartet, and a sextet. By the mid-1940s, however, big bands lost a lot of their popularity. In 1941, ASCAP had a licensing war with music publishers. In 1942 to 1944 and 1948, the musician's union went on strike against the major record labels in the United States, and singers took the spot in popularity that the big bands once enjoyed. During this strike, the United States War Department approached the union and requested the production of the V-Disc, a set of records containing new and fresh music for soldiers to listen to.^[31] Also, by the late 1940s, swing was no longer the dominant mode of jazz musicians.^[32]

Bebop, Cool Jazz[link]

By the 1940s, jazz musicians were borrowing advanced ideas from classical music. The recordings Goodman made in bop style for Capitol Records were highly praised by jazz critics. When Goodman was starting a bebop band, he hired Buddy Greco, Zoot Sims, Wardell Gray and a few other modern players.^[33]

Benny Goodman (third from left) in 1952 with some of his former musicians, seated around piano left to right: Vernon Brown, George Auld, Gene Krupa, Clint Neagley, Ziggy Elman, Israel Crosby and Teddy Wilson (at piano)

Goodman enjoyed the bebop and cool jazz that was beginning to arrive in the 1940s. When Goodman heard Thelonious Monk, a celebrated pianist and accompanist to bop players Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Kenny Clarke, he remarked, "I like it, I like that very much. I like the piece and I like the way he played it. [...] I think he's got a sense of humor and he's got some good things there."^[33]

By 1953, Goodman completely changed his mind about bebop. "Maybe bop has done more to set music back for years than anything [...] Basically it's all wrong. It's not even knowing the scales. [...] Bop was mostly publicity and people figuring angles."^[35]

Forays into classical repertoire[link]

Goodman's first classical recording dates from April 25, 1938 when he recorded Mozart's Clarinet Quintet in A major, K. 581, with the Budapest Quartet. After his bop period, Goodman furthered his interest in classical music written for the clarinet, and frequently met with top classical clarinetists of the day. In 1946, he met Ingolf Dahl, an emigre classical composer on the faculty of the University of Southern California, who was then musical director of the Victor Borge show. They played chamber music together (Brahms, Milhaud, Hindemith, Debussy) and in 1948 Goodman played in the world premiere performance of Dahl's Concerto a Tre.^[36]

In 1949, when he was 40, Goodman decided to study with Reginald Kell, one of the world's leading classical clarinetists. To do so, he had to change his entire technique: instead of holding the mouthpiece between his front teeth and lower lip, as he had done since he first took a clarinet in hand 30 years earlier, Goodman learned to adjust his embouchure to the use of both lips and even to use new fingering techniques. He had his old finger calluses removed and started to learn how to play his clarinet again—almost from scratch.^[37]

Goodman commissioned and premiered works by leading composers for clarinet and symphony orchestra that are now part of the standard repertoire, namely Contrasts by Béla Bartók, Clarinet Concerto No. 2, Op. 115 by Malcolm Arnold, Derivations for Clarinet and Band by Morton Gould, and Aaron Copland's Clarinet Concerto. While Leonard Bernstein's Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs was commissioned for Woody Herman's big band, it was premiered by Goodman. Woody Herman was the dedicatee (1945) and first performer (1946) of Igor Stravinsky's Ebony Concerto, but many years later Stravinsky made another recording, this time with Benny Goodman as the soloist.^[38]

He made a further recording of Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, in July 1956 with the Boston Symphony String Quartet, at the Berkshire Festival; on the same occasion he also recorded Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Charles Munch. He also recorded the clarinet concertos of Weber and Carl Nielsen.^[3]

Other recordings of classical repertoire by Goodman are:^[39]

• Premiere Rhapsodie for Clarinet by Claude Debussy
• Clarinet Sonata No. 2 in E flat by Johannes Brahms
• Rondo from Grand Duo Concertant in E flat by Weber, and
• An arrangement by Simeon Bellison of Beethoven's Variations on a theme from Mozart's "Don Giovanni".

Touring with Armstrong[link]

After forays outside of swing, Goodman started a new band in 1953. According to Donald Clarke, this was not a happy time for Goodman.

Goodman with his band and singer, Peggy Lee, in the film Stage Door Canteen (1943)

Movies[link]

Benny Goodman's band appeared as a specialty act in major musical features, including The Big Broadcast of 1937, Hollywood Hotel (1938), Syncopation (1942), The Powers Girl (1942), Stage Door Canteen (1943), The Gang's All Here (1943), Sweet and Lowdown (1944) and A Song Is Born (1948). Goodman's only starring feature was Sweet and Lowdown (1944).

Goodman's success story was told in the 1955 motion picture The Benny Goodman Story^[41] with Steve Allen and Donna Reed. A Universal-International production, it was a follow up to 1954's successful The Glenn Miller Story. The screenplay was heavily fictionalized, but the music was the real draw. Many of Goodman's professional colleagues appear in the film, including Ben Pollack, Gene Krupa, Lionel Hampton and Harry James.

Personality and influence[link]

Goodman was regarded by some as a demanding taskmaster, by others an arrogant and eccentric martinet. Many musicians spoke of "The Ray",^[42] Goodman's trademark glare that he bestowed on a musician who failed to perform to his demanding standards. Guitarist Allan Reuss incurred the maestro's displeasure on one occasion, and Goodman relegated him to the rear of the bandstand, where his contribution would be totally drowned out by the other musicians. Vocalists Anita O'Day and Helen Forrest spoke bitterly of their experiences singing with Goodman.^[43] "The twenty or so months I spent with Benny felt like twenty years," said Forrest. "When I look back, they seem like a life sentence." At the same time, there are reports that he privately funded several college educations and was sometimes very generous, though always secretly. When a friend once asked him why, he reportedly said, "Well, if they knew about it, everyone would come to me with their hand out."^[44]

Goodman is also responsible for a significant step in racial integration in America. In the early 1930s, black and white jazz musicians could not play together in most clubs or concerts. In the Southern states, racial segregation was enforced by the Jim Crow laws. Benny Goodman broke with tradition by hiring Teddy Wilson to play with him and drummer Gene Krupa in the Benny Goodman Trio. In 1936, he added Lionel Hampton on vibes to form the Benny Goodman Quartet; in 1939 he added pioneering jazz guitarist Charlie Christian to his band and small ensembles, who played with him until his death from tuberculosis less than three years later. This integration in music happened ten years before Jackie Robinson became the first black American to enter Major League Baseball. "[Goodman's] popularity was such that he could remain financially viable without touring the South, where he would have been subject to arrest for violating Jim Crow laws."^[46] According to Jazz by Ken Burns, when someone asked him why he "played with that nigger" (referring to Teddy Wilson), Goodman replied, "I'll knock you out if you use that word around me again".

John Hammond and Alice Goodman[link]

One of Benny Goodman's closest friends off and on, from the 1930s onward was celebrated Columbia records producer John H. Hammond, who influenced Goodman's move from RCA to the newly created Columbia records in 1939.^[3]

Benny Goodman dated John H. Hammond's sister Alice Frances Hammond (1913–1978) for three months. She had previously been married to British politician George Duckworth, from whom she obtained a divorce. She and Goodman married on March 14, 1942. They had two daughters, Benjie and Rachel.^[3]

Both daughters studied music, though neither became the musical prodigy Goodman was.

Hammond had encouraged Goodman to integrate his band, persuading him to employ pianist Teddy Wilson. But Hammond's tendency to interfere in the musical affairs of Goodman's and other bands led to Goodman pulling away from him. In 1953 they had another falling-out during Goodman's ill-fated tour with Louis Armstrong, which was produced by John Hammond.^[3]

Goodman appeared on a 1975 PBS salute to Hammond but remained at a distance. In the 1980s, following the death of Alice Goodman, John Hammond and Benny Goodman, both by then elderly, reconciled. On June 25, 1985, Goodman appeared at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City for "A Tribute to John Hammond".^[47]

Later years[link]

Benny Goodman in concert in Nuremberg, Germany (1971)

After winning numerous polls over the years as best jazz clarinetist, Goodman was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame in 1957.

Goodman continued to play on records and in small groups. One exception to this pattern was a collaboration with George Benson in the 1970s. The two met when they taped a PBS salute to John Hammond and re-created some of the famous Goodman-Charlie Christian duets.^[3]

Benson later appeared on several tracks of a Goodman album released as "Seven Come Eleven." In general Goodman continued to play in the swing style he was most known for. He did, however, practice and perform classical clarinet pieces and commissioned compositions for clarinet. Periodically he would organize a new band and play a jazz festival or go on an international tour.

Despite increasing health problems, he continued to play until his death from a heart attack in New York City in 1986 at the age of 77, in his home at Manhattan House, 200 East 66th Street. A longtime resident of Pound Ridge, New York, Benny Goodman is interred in the Long Ridge Cemetery, Stamford, Connecticut. The same year, Goodman was honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.^[48] Benny Goodman's musical papers were donated to Yale University after his death.^[4]

He is a member of the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame in the radio division.^[49]

His music was featured in the 2010 documentary Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story, narrated by Academy Award winner Dustin Hoffman.^[50][51][52]

Discography[link]

(This discography combines LP and CD reissues of Goodman recordings under the dates of the original 78 rpm recordings through about 1950)

Noted sidemen[link]

• Noni Bernardi (1911–2006), big-band musician and member of the Los Angeles, California, City Council, 1961–93

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Firestone, Ross (1993). Swing, Swing, Swing: The Life & Times of Benny Goodman. New York: Norton. ISBN 0-393-03371-6. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Benny Goodman

Music portal

• Benny Goodman official site
• Benny Goodman web biography with audio
• Benny Goodman scores, Music Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
• Benny Goodman papers (the bulk of the musician's estate) in Irving S. Gilmore Music Library of Yale University
• Benny Goodman Audio Collection, Institute of Jazz Studies, Dana Library, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ.
• Benny Goodman biography
• the Benny Goodman Sextet performing live in 1950 as regulars on the DuMont network TV series Star Time

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2011)

Buddy Rich
Buddy Rich at the Arcadia Ballroom in New York City in May 1947.
Background information
Birth name	Bernard Rich
Also known as	Traps the Drum Wonder (as a boy) and "B" (as an adult)
Born	(1917-09-30)September 30, 1917
Origin	Brooklyn, New York, US
Died	April 2, 1987(1987-04-02) (aged 69)
Genres	Jazz, big band, swing, bebop
Occupations	Musician, songwriter, bandleader, actor
Instruments	Drums, percussion
Years active	1919–1987
Associated acts	Joe Marsala Bunny Berigan Artie Shaw Tommy Dorsey Benny Carter Harry James Les Brown Frank Sinatra Charlie Ventura Jazz at the Philharmonic Nat King Cole Ella Fitzgerald Gene Krupa and Louis Armstrong
Website	http://www.buddyrich.com/

Bernard "Buddy" Rich (September 30, 1917 – April 2, 1987) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Rich was billed as "the world's greatest drummer"^[1] and was known for his virtuosic technique, power, groove, and speed.

Early life[link]

Rich was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Jewish vaudevillians Robert and Bess Rich.^[2] His talent for rhythm was first noted by his father, who saw that Buddy could keep a steady beat with spoons at the age of one. He began playing drums in vaudeville when he was 18 months old, billed as "Traps the Drum Wonder." At the peak of Rich's childhood career, he was reportedly the second-highest paid child entertainer in the world (after Jackie Coogan).^[3] At 11 he was performing as a bandleader. He received no formal drum instruction, and went so far as to claim that instruction would only degrade his musical talent. He also never admitted to practicing, claiming to play the drums only during performances^{[citation needed]} and was not known to read music. He expressed great admiration for, and was influenced by, the playing of Chick Webb, Gene Krupa, Dave Tough, and Jo Jones, among others.^{[citation needed]}.

Jazz career[link]

Buddy Rich in New York City in August 1946.

Rich first played jazz with a major group in 1937 with Joe Marsala and guitarist Jack Lemaire. He then played with Bunny Berigan (1938) and Artie Shaw (1939), and even instructed a 14-year-old Mel Brooks in drumming for a short period when playing for Shaw.^[4] At 21, Rich participated in his first major recording with the Vic Schoen Orchestra (the band that backed the Andrews Sisters).^[5] In 1938, he was also hired to play in Tommy Dorsey's orchestra where he met and performed with Frank Sinatra. In 1942, Rich left the Dorsey band to join the United States Marine Corps. He rejoined the Dorsey group after leaving the Marines two years later. In 1946, Rich formed his own band with financial support from Sinatra, and continued to lead different groups on and off until the early fifties.^[6][7]

Buddy Rich performing with a jazz group in the 1940s.

In addition to Tommy Dorsey (1939–1942, 1945, 1954–1955), Rich also played with Benny Carter (1942), Harry James (1953-1956–1962, 1964, 1965), Les Brown, Charlie Ventura, and Jazz at the Philharmonic, as well as leading his own band and performing with all-star groups. In the early fifties Rich played with Dorsey and also began to perform with trumpeter Harry James, an association which lasted until 1966. In 1966, Rich left James in order to develop a new big band. For most of the period from 1966 until his death, he led successful big bands in an era when the popularity of big bands had waned from their 1930s and 40s peak. In this later period, Rich continued to play clubs but he had stated in multiple interviews that the great majority of his big band's performances were at high schools, colleges and universities, with club performances done to a much lesser degree. Rich also served as the session drummer for many recordings, where his playing was often much more understated than in his own big-band performances. Especially notable were Rich's sessions for the late-career comeback recordings of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, on which he worked with pianist Oscar Peterson and his famous trio featuring bassist Ray Brown and guitarist Herb Ellis.

Drumming technique and well known performances[link]

Buddy Rich drumming at a concert in Cologne, Germany on March 3, 1977.

Rich's technique has been one of the most standardized and coveted in drumming. His dexterity, musicality of playing style, speed and smooth execution are considered "holy grails" of drum technique and have been considered next to impossible to duplicate. While Rich typically held his sticks using traditional grip, he was also a skilled "match grip" player, and was one of few drummers to master the one-handed roll on both hands. Some of his more spectacular moves are crossover riffs, where he would criss-cross his arms from one drum to another, sometimes over the arm, and even under the arm at great speed.

He often used contrasting techniques to keep long drum solos from getting mundane. Aside from his energetic explosive displays, he would go into quieter passages. One passage he would use in most solos starts with a simple single-stroke roll on the snare picking up speed and power, then slowly moving his sticks closer to the rim as he gets quieter and then eventually playing on just the rim itself while still maintaining speed. Then he would reverse the effect and slowly move towards the center of the snare while increasing power.

Rich also demonstrated incredible skill at brush technique. On one album, 1955's The Lionel Hampton Art Tatum Buddy Rich Trio, Rich plays brushes almost exclusively throughout.

Another Rich technique that few drummers have been able to perfect is the stick-trick – a fast roll performed by slapping two drumsticks together in a circular motion.

In 1942, Rich and drum teacher Henry Adler co-authored the instructional book Buddy Rich's Modern Interpretation of Snare Drum Rudiments, regarded as one of the more popular snare-drum rudiment books.^{[citation needed]}

One of Adler's former students introduced Adler to Rich. "The kid told me Buddy played better than [Gene] Krupa. Buddy was only in his teens at the time and his friend was my first pupil. Buddy played and I watched his hands. Well, he knocked me right out. He did everything I wanted to do, and he did it with such ease. When I met his folks, I asked them who his teacher was. 'He never studied,' they told me. That made me feel very good. I realized that it was something physical, not only mental, that you had to have."

In a 1985 interview^{[citation needed]}, Adler clarified the extent of his teacher-student relationship to Rich and their collaboration on the instructional book:

"I had nothing to do with [the rumor that I taught Buddy how to play]. That was a result of Tommy Dorsey's introduction to the Buddy Rich book," Adler said. "I used to go around denying it, knowing that Buddy was a natural player. Sure, he studied with me, but he didn't come to me to learn how to hold the drumsticks. I set out to teach Buddy to read. He'd take six lessons, go on the road for six weeks and come back. He didn't have time to practice."^{[citation needed]}

"Tommy Dorsey wanted Buddy to write a book and he told him to get in touch with me. I did the book and Tommy wrote the foreword. Technically, I was Buddy's teacher, but I came along after he had already acquired his technique."^{[citation needed]}

When asked about Rich's ability to read music, Bobby Shew, lead trumpeter in Rich's mid-60s big band replied,

"No. He’d always have a drummer there during rehearsals to read and play the parts initially on new arrangements... He’d only have to listen to a chart once and he’d have it memorized. We'd run through it and he'd know exactly how it went, how many measures it ran and what he'd have to do to drive it... The guy had the most natural instincts."^[8]

[edit] The West Side Story Medley

Perhaps his most popular later performance was a big band arrangement of a medley derived from the Leonard Bernstein classic West Side Story, first released on the 1966 album Buddy Rich's Swingin' New Big Band

The West Side Story medley is a complex and difficult-to-perform big-band arrangement which highlights Rich's remarkable ability to blend the rhythm of his drumming into his band's playing of the musical chart. Penned by Bill Reddie, Rich received the West Side Story arrangement of Leonard Bernstein's melodies from the famed musical in the mid-1960s and found it to be very challenging even for him. It consists of many rapid-fire time changes and signatures and took almost a month of constant rehearsals to perfect. It since became a staple in all his performances, clocking in at various lengths from seven to fifteen minutes. Bernstein himself had nothing but praise for it.^{[citation needed]} In 2002, a DVD was released called The Lost West Side Story Tapes that captured a 1985 performance of this along with other numbers.^[9] These tapes had been previously thought to have been lost in a fire. Rich's ability to create spontaneous drum solos that matched and melded with the musical intricacies and intensity of big band scores was chief among his musical brilliance.

[edit] Channel One Suite

After the West Side Story Medley, Rich's most famous performance was the Channel One Suite by Bill Reddie. Like the West Side Story Medley, the Channel One Suite generally was a quite long performance ranging from about 12 minutes to about 26 minutes and usually contained 2 or 3 drum solos. Although 26 minute performances of the Channel One Suite were not incredibly common, they were not unheard of. A recording of one of his live performances was released in 2006 which contained a 26 minute Channel One Suite.^[10]

In Italy, Rich's version of Winning the West was from 1973 to 1976 the musical theme of a weekly TV sports magazine broadcast, La domenica sportiva.

TV appearances[link]

In the 1950s, Rich was a frequent guest on The Steve Allen Show and other television variety shows.^[11] Beginning in 1962, Rich was also a frequent guest on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show and The Merv Griffin Show, among others, and appeared with his Big Band on British television, on Michael Parkinson's talk show Parkinson and on the Terry Wogan Show (the last on October 29, 1986, only a few months prior to his death).^[12] Along with singer Buddy Greco and comedian George Carlin, Rich starred in a 1967 summer replacement television series called Away We Go.^[13] One of his most widely seen television performances was in a 1981 episode^[14] of The Muppet Show, where he engaged Muppet drummer "Animal" (played by Ronnie Verrell) in a drum battle. Rich also made guest appearances on the TV shows Here's Lucy and Hee Haw.

In an episode of Michael Parkinson's British talk show, Parkinson kidded Rich about his Donny Osmond kick, by claiming that Rich was the president of The Osmonds' fan club.^{[citation needed]}

Instruments[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Buddy was known as a performer and endorser of Slingerland Radio King, and Rogers Drums. He switched to Ludwig drums for much of the 1970s to the early 1980s. While recovering from a heart attack in 1959,^[15] Rich was presented with an original Slingerland Radio King 5X14 wood snare drum completely reconditioned by the Eames drum company. Later, a mismatched Radio King set was completely refurbished for Rich and he used that set right up to his death in 1987. His typical setup included a 14"X26" bass drum, 9"X13" mounted tom, two 16"X16" floor toms (although he rarely used the second tom where he would simply place a towel on the surface), and a 5"X14" snare drum. His cymbals were typically Zildjian consisting of standard 14" hi hats, 20" ride, either a 6" or 8" splash, two 18" crashes, and a 20" swish.

Personality[link]

Although Rich was usually helpful and friendly, he had a short temper. While he threatened many times to fire members of his band, he seldom did so, and for the most part he lauded his band members during television and print interviews. Dusty Springfield allegedly slapped Rich after several days of "putting up with Rich's insults and show-biz sabotage."^[16][17]

In the Beastie Boys song "Sabotage", the lyrics "I'm Buddy Rich when I fly off the handle," referred to Rich's temper. Buddy Rich held a black belt in karate, as mentioned in a CNN television interview with Larry King, c. 1985.

Band member and lifelong friend David Lucas says that "Rich had a soft heart underneath it all. His favorite song was "It's Not Easy Being Green".

The tapes[link]

Rich's temper, mercurial attitude and imposing personality are documented in secret recordings that pianist Lee Musiker made during some of his tantrums on tour buses and backstage in the early 1980s.^[18] These recordings, long circulated in bootleg form, have done much to fuel the reputation of Rich's personality. The tapes were popular with comedians Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, who used three quotes from them more or less verbatim on Seinfeld:^[19]

• "If I have to tell you again, we're gonna take it outside and I'm gonna show you what it's like!" ("The Opposite")
• "This guy – this is not my kind of guy." ("The Understudy")
• "Then let's see how he does, up there, without all the assistance!" ("The Butter Shave")

On one recording, Rich threatens to fire Dave Panichi, a trombonist, for wearing a beard.^[20][21] Days before Rich died, he was visited by Mel Tormé, who claims that one of Rich's last requests was "to hear the tapes" that featured his angry outbursts.^{[citation needed]} At the time, Tormé was working on an authorized biography of Rich which was released after Rich's death, titled Traps, The Drum Wonder: The Life of Buddy Rich.

Death and legacy[link]

Buddy Rich remained active performing until the end of his life. On April 2, 1987, Rich died of heart failure following surgery for a malignant brain tumor. He is interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. He was 69.

Since Rich's death, a number of memorial concerts have been held. In 1994, the Rich tribute album Burning for Buddy: A Tribute to the Music of Buddy Rich was released. Produced by Rush drummer/lyricist Neil Peart, the album features performances of Rich staples by a number of rock and jazz drummers such as Kenny Aronoff, Carl Palmer, Matt Sorum, Dave Weckl, Steve Gadd, Vinnie Colaiuta, Max Roach, Steve Smith, and Peart himself, accompanied by the Buddy Rich Big Band. A second volume was issued in 1997.

Discography[link]

Studio and live albums as leader or co-leader[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Buddy Rich

Biography portal

• Official website
• Buddy Rich on Drummerworld
• Buddy Rich at Wikiquote
• Buddy Rich at Allmusic (Discography and brief biography)

Phil Collins
Phil Collins performing in Perugia, Italy, 1996
Background information
Birth name	Philip David Charles Collins
Born	(1951-01-30) 30 January 1951 (age 61) Chiswick, Middlesex, England, United Kingdom
Genres	Progressive rock, rock, pop, pop rock, soft rock, jazz fusion, R&B, big band
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician, actor
Instruments	Vocals, drums, percussion, guitar, piano, keyboards
Years active	1968–2011
Labels	Virgin, Atlantic
Associated acts	Genesis, Brand X, Flaming Youth, Philip Bailey, Eric Clapton, the Phil Collins Big Band, Frida Lyngstad, Brian Eno
Website	philcollins.co.uk

Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins, LVO (born 30 January 1951)^[1] is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, pianist and actor best known as a drummer and vocalist for British progressive rock group Genesis and as a solo artist.

Collins sang the lead vocals on several chart hits in the United Kingdom and the United States between 1975 and 2010, either as a solo artist or with Genesis. His singles, sometimes dealing with lost love, ranged from the drum-heavy "In the Air Tonight", dance pop of "Sussudio", piano-driven "Against All Odds", to the political statements of "Another Day in Paradise".

Collins's professional music career began as a drummer, originally in a band called The Real Thing with Andrea Bertorelli, who later became his first wife. Collins played drums and shared lead vocals (with Brian Chatton) in Flaming Youth which recorded one album, (Ark II). In 1970, he took over drums for Genesis, which had already recorded two albums. In Genesis, Collins originally supplied backing vocals for front man Peter Gabriel, singing lead on only two songs: "For Absent Friends" from 1971's Nursery Cryme album and "More Fool Me" from Selling England by the Pound, which was released in 1973. Following Gabriel's departure in 1975, Collins became the group's lead singer.

His solo career, heavily influenced by his personal life, brought both himself and Genesis commercial success. According to Atlantic Records, Collins's total worldwide sales as a solo artist, as of 2000, were 150 million.^[2] Collins has won numerous music awards throughout his career, including seven Grammy Awards, five Brit Awards—winning Best British Male three times, an Academy Award, and two Golden Globes for his solo work.^[3][4] He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Genesis in 2010.

Collins is one of only three recording artists (along with Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson) who have sold over 100 million albums worldwide both as solo artists and (separately) as principal members of a band.^[5] When his work with Genesis, his work with other artists, as well as his solo career is totalled, Collins had more top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart during the 1980s than any other artist.^[6] In 2008, Collins was ranked the 22nd most successful artist on the "The Billboard Hot 100 Top All-Time Artists".^[7]

Early life[link]

Collins was born in Chiswick, London, the son of Winifred M. "June" (née Strange), a theatrical agent, and Greville Philip Austin Collins, an insurance agent.^[8][9] He was given a toy drum kit for Christmas when he was five. Later, his uncle made him a makeshift one that he used regularly. As Collins grew older these were followed by more complete sets bought by his parents.^[10] He practiced by playing alongside the television and radio, and never learned to read and write conventional musical notation; instead, he uses a system he devised himself.^[11]

Early career[link]

His professional training began at 14 when he entered Barbara Speake Stage School.^[12] He began a career as a child actor and model, and won his first major role as the Artful Dodger in the London production of Oliver!. He was an extra in the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night, one of hundreds of screaming teenagers during the TV concert sequence and seen fleetingly in a close-up. He was also in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as one of the children who storms the castle at the end of the film, but it was cut.^[13] He also auditioned for the role of Romeo in Romeo and Juliet (1968),^[14] a role won by fellow Artful Dodger actor Leonard Whiting.^[15] Collins was among the last three finalists for the role of I.Q. on the American children's television show The Bugaloos (he lost out to English actor/musician John McIndoe).^[16]

Despite the beginnings of an acting career, Collins continued to gravitate towards music. While attending Chiswick Community School he formed a band called the Real Thing and later joined the Freehold. With the latter group, he wrote his first song titled "Lying Crying Dying".^[17]

Collins's first record deal came as drummer for Hickory, who changed their name to Flaming Youth by the time of their sole album, Ark 2 (1969).^[18] A concept album inspired by the recent media attention surrounding the moon landing, Ark 2 (with Ronnie Caryl, Brian Chatton and Gordon (Flash) Smith), failed to make much commercial success despite positive critical reviews. Melody Maker featured the album as "Pop Album of the Month", describing it as "adult music beautifully played with nice tight harmonies".^[19] The album's main single, "From Now On", failed on the radio. After a year of touring, band tensions and the lack of commercial success dissolved the group. In 1970, the 19-year old Collins played percussion on the George Harrison song "The Art of Dying". Harrison credited him in the liner notes to the remastered CD version of the album released in 2000.^[20]

Genesis era[link]

In 1970, Collins answered a Melody Maker classified ad for "...a drummer sensitive to acoustic music, and acoustic twelve-string guitarist".^[21] Genesis placed the ad after having already lost three drummers over two albums.^[22] The audition occurred at the home of Peter Gabriel's parents. Prospective candidates performed tracks from the group's second album, Trespass (1970). Collins arrived early, listened to the other auditions while swimming in Gabriel's parents' pool, and memorised the pieces before his turn.^[23]

Collins won the audition. Nursery Cryme was released a year later. Although his role remained primarily that of drummer and backing vocalist for the next five years, he twice sang lead vocals: once on "For Absent Friends" (from Nursery Cryme) and once on "More Fool Me" (from Selling England by the Pound).

In 1974, while Genesis were recording the concept album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Brian Eno (who is credited with "Enossification" for electronic vocal effects on the track "Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging") needed a drummer for his album Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy).^[24] Collins was sent to fill the gap, and played drums in lieu of payment for Eno's work with the band. Collins later contributed drums to the Brian Eno 1975, and 1977 art rock releases Another Green World and Before and After Science.

In 1975, following the final tour supporting the album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Gabriel left the group to pursue a solo career. Collins became lead vocalist after a lengthy but ultimately fruitless search for Gabriel's replacement (where he sang back-up with the over 400 hopefuls that reportedly auditioned).^[25] In the short term, the group recruited former Yes and King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford to play drums during live shows, although Collins continued to play during longer instrumental sections. Bruford's drumming can be heard on the track "The Cinema Show" on the live album Seconds Out. He was soon replaced by ex-Frank Zappa band member Chester Thompson, who became a mainstay of the band's live line-up. Collins, however, continued to play drums on all of the group's studio recordings.

The first album with Collins as lead vocalist, 1976's A Trick of the Tail, reached the American Top 40, and peaked high as No.3 on the UK charts. Said Rolling Stone, "Genesis has managed to turn the possible catastrophe of Gabriel's departure into their first broad-based American success."^[26] Following the recording of Genesis's next album Wind and Wuthering guitarist Steve Hackett left the group to pursue his own solo career. The group decided to continue as a trio for recording with Mike Rutherford playing guitar and bass in the studio, although the lineup was regularly augmented by Chester Thompson and American guitarist Daryl Stuermer for concert tours.

Collins simultaneously performed in a jazz fusion group called Brand X. The band recorded their first album, Unorthodox Behaviour, with Collins as drummer, but because Genesis was Collins's priority, there were several Brand X tours and albums without him. Collins credits Brand X as his first use of a drum machine as well as his first use of a home 8-track tape machine.^[27]

Collins also performed on Steve Hackett's first solo album, Voyage of the Acolyte, on which he sang lead vocals and played drums. As the decade closed, Genesis began a shift from their progressive rock roots and toward more accessible, radio-friendly pop-rock music. The album ...And Then There Were Three... featured their first UK Top 10 and US Top 40 single, "Follow You Follow Me".^[28][29]

	"Dance on a Volcano" (1976) noicon The first track from Genesis's A Trick of the Tail was Collins's début as the group's full-time lead singer. A progressive rock track, it contrasts with the style of his later work.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

In the 1980s, while Collins developed as a songwriter and established a parallel career as a solo artist, Genesis recorded a series of highly successful albums including Duke, Abacab, Genesis, and Invisible Touch. The latter album's title track reached No.1 on the American Billboard singles chart, the only Genesis song to do so. The group received an MTV "Video of the Year" nomination in 1987 for the single "Land of Confusion" (which featured puppet caricatures created by the British satirical team Spitting Image) but lost out to Peter Gabriel's solo hit, "Sledgehammer".^[30] Reviews were generally positive, with Rolling Stone's J. D. Considine stating, "every tune is carefully pruned so that each flourish delivers not an instrumental epiphany but a solid hook."^[31]

Collins left Genesis in 1996 to focus on his solo career.^[17] The last studio album with him as the lead singer was 1991's We Can't Dance. He and Gabriel reunited with other Genesis members in 1999 to re-record "The Carpet Crawlers" for Genesis's Turn It on Again: The Hits. When in the mid-2000s discussions of a possible Genesis reunion arose, Collins stated that he would prefer to return as the drummer, with Gabriel handling the vocals.^[32] Eventually Turn It On Again: The Tour was announced for 2007, with the Collins/Rutherford/Banks line-up.

In March 2010, Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio was asked to pay tribute to Genesis, one of his favourite bands, upon being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. In addition to Anastasio's speech, Phish appeared and performed two Genesis songs, "Watcher of the Skies" and "No Reply At All". Collins and his Genesis band-mates (minus Peter Gabriel) attended the ceremony but they did not perform.

Solo career[link]

Early solo recordings (1981–1983)[link]

The dominant theme running through Collins's early solo recordings (although never specifically mentioned in his songs) was the acrimonious breakdown of his first marriage and then-recent divorce. Two songs he wrote on the Genesis album Duke, "Please Don't Ask", and the Top 20 hit "Misunderstanding", dealt with failed relationships. One year earlier, he had played drums and sung backing vocals on John Martyn's Grace and Danger, an album whose main theme is also marriage break-up. With the recording of his first solo album, Face Value, Collins attributed his divorce as his main influence,^[33] as can be inferred from songs such as "If Leaving Me Is Easy".

	"In the Air Tonight" noicon "In the Air Tonight" from Face Value (1981), was the first single of Collins' solo career.
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Collins made his live debut as a solo performer, appearing at the invitation of producer Martin Lewis at the Amnesty International benefit show, The Policeman's Other Ball at the Theatre Royal in London in September 1981, performing two songs from Face Value including "In the Air Tonight" and "The Roof is Leaking" accompanying himself on piano. Face Value became a surprise international success topping the charts in at least seven countries and hitting the top ten of the Billboard 200 eventually going triple-platinum in the US. Hits from the album included "In the Air Tonight", "I Missed Again" and "If Leaving Me Is Easy". In 1982, he produced ABBA member Frida's solo album, Something's Going On, which helped to spawn the title track, "I Know There's Something Going On", which became a hit.

Much like Face Value, many of the songs from Collins's 1982 follow-up album, Hello, I Must Be Going!, came from Collins's marital problems with his first wife such as "I Don't Care Anymore" and "Do You Know and Do You Care". Collins’s early albums had a dark presence, usually heavy on the drums. Regarding Face Value, he says, "I had a wife, two children, two dogs, and the next day I didn't have anything. So a lot of these songs were written because I was going through these emotional changes."^[34] There were occasional poppier influences–Face Value's "Behind the Lines", for example, was a jazzy remake of a Genesis song he co-wrote. Face Value was a critical and multi-platinum success, and saw Collins’s profile increase further. Hello, I Must Be Going! gave him a UK No.1 for his cover of the Supremes' "You Can't Hurry Love". The album went triple-platinum in the United States, like its predecessor. The Supremes' cover was his first Top 10 US hit (it also hit the Top 10 of Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart). The album also reached No.2 on the UK album chart, spending well over a year there.^[28]

Two years before, Collins had played drums on Peter Gabriel's third self-titled record (often referred to as Melt), the first record to feature the "gated reverb" sound, which was used on the song "Intruder". Gabriel reportedly "didn't want any metal on the record" and asked Collins to leave his cymbals at home, to concentrate on the sound of his kit more heavily than usual. Studio engineer Hugh Padgham augmented the drum sound by using a microphone normally intended for studio communication rather than recording and feeding it through a signal processor called a noise gate. This allowed the reverberation added to the drums to be suddenly cut off before it naturally decayed. The result was the arresting "gated reverb" which became Collins signature sound. This was the same 'big drum sound' used on such songs as "In The Air Tonight", "Mama" by Genesis, and Frida's "There's Something Going On".

Mid-career (1984–1992)[link]

	"Against All Odds" noicon "Against All Odds" from the soundtrack of the same name (1984), is a piano-driven ballad. "Another Day in Paradise" noicon A sample of "Another Day in Paradise" from ...But Seriously (1989). The ballad was written to bring attention to the problem of homelessness
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Collins changed his musical style with the release of the ballad, "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)", which was the theme song to the movie of the same name in 1984. The more pop-friendly and radio-accessible single became Collins's first solo single to reach number-one on the Billboard Hot 100.^[29] Later that year, Collins contributed to production on Earth, Wind & Fire singer Phillip Bailey's debut album, Chinese Wall, collaborating with Bailey on the hit duet, "Easy Lover". Collins featured on Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas", he played drums and sang on the song. Collins released his most successful album, No Jacket Required, in early 1985. It contained the hits "Sussudio", "One More Night", "Don't Lose My Number", and "Take Me Home", as well as the less known yet equally robust "Who Said I Would", and "Only You Know and I Know". The album featured Sting, Helen Terry and ex-bandmate Peter Gabriel as backing vocalists. He also recorded the successful song "Separate Lives", a duet with Marilyn Martin, and a US number one, for the movie White Nights.^[29] Collins had three US number one songs in 1985, the most by any artist that year.^[29] No Jacket Required went on to win several Grammy awards including Album of the Year.

No Jacket Required received criticism that the album was too safe, despite its upbeat reviews and commercial success. A positive review by David Fricke of Rolling Stone ended, "After years on the art-rock fringe, Collins has established himself firmly in the middle of the road. Perhaps he should consider testing himself and his new fans' expectations next time around."^[35] "Sussudio" also drew criticism for sounding too similar to Prince's "1999", a charge that Collins did not deny.^[36] Nevertheless, the album went straight to #1 in the US and UK. In 1985, Collins was invited by Bob Geldof to perform at the Live Aid charity event. Collins had the distinction of being the only performer to appear at both the UK concert at Wembley Stadium and the US concert at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. He accomplished this by performing early in the day at Wembley as both a solo artist and alongside Sting, then transferring to a Concorde flight to the US enabling him to perform his solo material, and drum for Led Zeppelin and Eric Clapton in Philadelphia. While being a guest on major artists' hit recordings, Collins continued to enjoy solo success even while on tour with Genesis, besides from his number-one duet with Marilyn Martin in 1986, Collins would score two more hits from movies with the singles, "Two Hearts" (No.1 US, No.6 UK), and "Groovy Kind of Love" (No.1 UK, No.1 US), the latter two from the soundtrack of his feature film, Buster.^[28][29]

In 1989, Collins produced another successful album, ...But Seriously, featuring the anti-homelessness anthem "Another Day in Paradise", with David Crosby on backing vocals. (Collins later went on to co-write, sing and play on the song "Hero" on Crosby's 1993 album Thousand Roads.) "Another Day in Paradise" went to Number 1 on the Billboard Charts at the end of 1989 and won Collins Best British Single at the 1990 Brit Awards, and the 1991 Grammy Award for Record of the Year.^[37][38] In the process, it became the last No.1 US pop hit of the 1980s. The album ...But Seriously became the first No.1 US album of the 1990s and the best-selling album of 1990 in the UK. Other songs included "Something Happened on the Way to Heaven" (No.4 US, No.15 UK), "Do You Remember?" (not released in the UK, but a No.4 hit in the US), and "I Wish It Would Rain Down" (the latter featuring Eric Clapton on guitar) (No.3 US, No.7 UK).^[28][29] Songs about apartheid and homelessness demonstrated Collins’s turn to politically-driven material. This theme recurred on his later albums. A live album, Serious Hits... Live!, followed. In September 1990, Collins performed "Sussudio" at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles.^[39]

Later solo work and Genesis reunion (1993–2008)[link]

Collins's record sales began to drop with the 1993 release of Both Sides, a largely experimental album that, according to Collins, included songs that "were becoming so personal, so private, I didn't want anyone else's input".^[40] Featuring a less polished sound and fewer up-tempo songs than his previous albums, Both Sides was a significant departure. Collins used no backing musicians, performed all the vocal and instrumental parts at his home studio, and used rough vocal takes for the final product. The album was not well received by radio. Its two biggest hits were "Both Sides of the Story" and "Everyday". Collins worked on the album completely independently of his record company, and took them by surprise when he delivered them a completed album that they were unaware he was making.

Collins officially parted ways with Genesis in 1996 to focus on his solo career (Genesis would produce one album without Collins—...Calling All Stations...—before going on hiatus). Collins attempted a return to pop music with Dance into the Light, which Entertainment Weekly reviewed by saying that "(e)ven Phil Collins must know that we all grew weary of Phil Collins".^[41] It included minor hits such as the title track and the Beatles-inspired "It's in Your Eyes". Although the album went Gold in the US, it sold considerably less than his previous albums. Despite this, the subsequent tour regularly sold out arenas.

In 1996, Collins formed the Phil Collins Big Band. With Collins as drummer, the band performed jazz renditions of various Collins and Genesis hits. The Phil Collins Big Band did a world tour in 1998 that included a performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival. In 1999, the group released the CD A Hot Night in Paris including big band versions of "Invisible Touch", "Sussudio", and the more obscure "The Los Endos Suite" from A Trick of the Tail.

Phil Collins's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, 6834 Hollywood Blvd

A compilation album ...Hits was released in 1998 and sold very well, returning Collins to multi-platinum status in America. The album's sole new track, a cover of the Cyndi Lauper hit "True Colors", received considerable play on US Adult Contemporary stations while peaking at No.2.^[42] Some of Collins's earlier hits (e.g. "I Missed Again", "If Leaving Me Is Easy", etc.) and other successes were not included in this compilation.

Collins's next single, "You'll Be in My Heart", from the Disney animated movie Tarzan, spent 19 weeks at No.1 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart – the longest time ever up to that point. The song won Collins an Academy Award for Best Song. It was his third nomination in the songwriters' category, after being nominated in 1985 and 1989. Collins was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, on 16 June 1999.^[43]

Collins performing in Barcelona, Spain in July 2004

In 2002 Collins released Testify. Metacritic's roundup of album reviews found this record to be the worst-reviewed album at the time of its release, though it has since been "surpassed" by three more recent releases.^[44] The album's "Can't Stop Loving You" (a Leo Sayer cover) was yet another #1 Adult Contemporary smash hit for Collins. Testify sold 140,000 copies in the United States by year's end, although a successful worldwide tour followed.^[45]

That same year Collins accepted an invitation to drum for the "house band" at a concert celebrating Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee. In 2003 announced his last solo tour^[46] – the "First Final Farewell Tour", a tongue-in-cheek reference to the multiple farewell tours of other popular artists. In 2006 he worked with Disney on a Broadway production of Tarzan, a musical which received generally mixed reviews. In 2007 Collins reunited with his Genesis bandmates Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford for Turn It On Again: The Tour, a tour of Europe and North America. During the tour Genesis performed at the Live Earth concert at Wembley Stadium. Following the band's performance, presenter Jonathan Ross had to apologise to viewers watching the televised version as Collins had used a swear word while singing "Invisible Touch".

[edit] Going Back and retirement (2009–2011)

In October 2009, it was reported that Collins was to record a Motown covers album. He told a German newspaper, "I want the songs to sound exactly like the originals", and that the album would feature up to 30 songs.^[47] In January 2010, Chester Thompson said that the album had been completed and would be released some time soon. He also revealed that Collins managed to play the drums on the album despite the adverse effects of his recent spinal operation.^[48] It was the first solo album Collins had recorded which consisted entirely of songs written by other people.

Going Back was released on 13 September 2010, entering the UK charts at number 4, rising to number one the following week.^[49] In early summer 2010, Collins played six concerts entirely dedicated to the music from Going Back. These included a special programme, Phil Collins: One Night Only, which was broadcast on ITV1 on 18 September 2010. Collins also promoted Going Back with his first and only appearance on the BBC's foremost music series Later... with Jools Holland, broadcast on 17 September 2010.

As of January 2011, Collins has spent 1,730 weeks in German music charts – 766 weeks of them with Genesis albums and singles and 964 weeks with solo releases.^[50]

Citing health problems and other concerns, Collins announced on 4 March 2011 that he was taking time off from his career, prompting widespread reports of his retirement.^[51] Days later, on 7 March, his UK representative told the press, "He is not, has no intention of, retiring."^[52] However, later that day, Collins posted a message to his fans on his own website, confirming his intention to retire in order to focus on his family life.^[53][54]

Drums and other equipment[link]

Phil Collins uses Gretsch drums and Sabian cymbals. Drums (all single headed concert toms except for the snare): 20" Bass Drum, 18" Floor Tom, 16" Floor Tom, 15" Mounted Tom, 12" Tom, 10" Tom, 8" Tom, 14"x4" Snare, 14" Phil Collins Special.

Cymbals: HH Medium Crash 20" – HH Extra Thin Crash 17" – Hi-Hats 15" – HH China 20" – HH Medium-Thin Crash 16" -HH China 22" – HH Raw Bell Dry Ride 21".^[55]

Until 1986, Collins played Paiste and Zildjian cymbals. Other drums he's used over the years are Premier, Noble & Cooley, Pearl, Simmons and Ludwig drums. He uses a Ludwig Speed King pedal and Pro Mark sticks.

Other instruments which have become synonymous with Collins's sound (particularly in his post-1978 Genesis and subsequent solo career) include the Roland CR-78 and Roland TR-808 drum machines, Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 synthesizer,^[56] and the Yamaha CP-70 electric grand piano.

Career as producer[link]

For his solo career and his career with Genesis, Collins produced or co-produced virtually all of his singles and albums, the notable exceptions being "Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)" (produced by Arif Mardin), and his cover of "True Colors" (produced by Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds.)

Collins also maintained a career as a producer for other artists throughout the 1980s, usually working on outside projects at the rate of one artist per year. His first outside work as a producer was the 1981 album Glorious Fool for John Martyn; he followed that up by producing Frida's 1982 album Something's Going On, which contained the international hit "I Know There's Something Going On".

1983 found Collins producing two tracks for Adam Ant, both of which hit the UK charts: "Puss 'N' Boots" and "Strip". ("Strip" was a minor US hit as well.) In 1984, he produced Phillip Bailey's album Chinese Wall, from which the hit Bailey/Collins duet "Easy Lover" was drawn. This album also contained the Bailey hit "Walking On The Chinese Wall".

In 1985, Collins produced several tracks on the Eric Clapton album Behind The Sun. The following year, he produced (in collaboration with Hugh Padgham) one track for Howard Jones, the international hit "No One Is to Blame".

Returning to work with Clapton, Collins was one of the producers on his 1987 album August. The UK top 20 single "Behind The Mask" was drawn from this album, and this particular track credited production to "Phil Collins in association with Tom Dowd."

In 1988, Collins and Lamont Dozier collaborated as writers and producers of the Four Tops top 10 UK hit "Loco In Acapulco", which was taken from the soundtrack of the film Buster, in which Collins starred. Finally, in 1989, Collins was one of the producers of the Stephen Bishop album Bowling in Paris, which included the US Adult Contemporary hit "Walking on Air", produced by Collins and Padgham.

Films, theatre and television[link]

The majority of Collins's film work has been through music. Four of his seven American number one songs came from film soundtracks, and his work on Disney's Tarzan earned him an Oscar. Collins even sang German, Italian, Spanish and French versions of the Tarzan soundtrack for the respective film versions. Collins's acting career has been brief. As a child, he appeared in three films, although two of the films were for brief moments as an extra. Besides the aforementioned A Hard Day's Night (1964), Collins's first lead role was in a children's film Calamity the Cow (1967).

Collins wrote and performed the title song to Against All Odds in 1984. The song became the first of his seven American number one songs and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Song. Collins was not invited to perform the song at that year's presentation, although he was in the audience as the song's composer. Collins had arranged his US tour to accommodate the possibility of appearing on the telecast in the event his song was nominated for an Oscar. It is believed that the producers of that year's Academy Awards show were not aware of his prominence as a musical performer. A note to Collins's label from telecast co-producer Larry Gelbart explaining the lack of invitation stated, "Thank you for your note regarding Phil Cooper [sic]. I'm afraid the spots have already been filled". Collins instead watched Ann Reinking perform his song.^[57] For a long time afterwards, he would introduce his performance of "Against All Odds" at his concerts by saying: "Miss Ann Reinking's not here tonight, so I guess I'll have to sing my own song".

As a vocalist, Collins sang Stephen Bishop's composition "Separate Lives" for the film White Nights (1985) as a duet with Marilyn Martin. The single of the recording became another number one hit for Collins. The song itself was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song (a category that honours the composer, not the vocalists). Bishop's song had parallels to some of the songs on Collins's first two albums. Writer Stephen Bishop noted that he was inspired by a failed relationship and called "Separate Lives" "a song about anger".^[58] When the song was being nominated for an Academy Award, in interviews about the original snub by the Academy for "Against All Odds", Collins would jokingly say "the hell with him – I'm going up too," referring to if Bishop's song were to win the award.^[59]

Collins's first film role since becoming a musician came in 1988 with Buster about the Great Train Robbery, which took place in England in August, 1963. The film received good reviews and Collins contributed four songs to the film's soundtrack. His rendition of "Groovy Kind of Love", originally a 1966 single by the Mindbenders, with lyrics by Toni Wine and music by Carole Bayer Sager, but with the melody of the Rondo section of Muzio Clementi's "Sonatina in G major", op. 36 no. 5 reached number one. The film also spawned the hit single "Two Hearts", which he wrote in collaboration with legendary Motown songwriter Lamont Dozier; the two artists would go on to win a Golden Globe for Best Original Song and receive an Oscar nomination in the same category, the second such honour for Collins; "Big Noise", written by Phil Collins and Lamont Dozier, which included Collins on vocals (although the song was not released as a single, an instrumental version of this song appeared as the B-side to the single version of "A Groovy Kind Of Love".) The final song, "Loco In Acapulco", was another collaboration between him and Dozier, with the vocals performed by the legendary Motown group the Four Tops. Film critic Roger Ebert said the role of Buster was "played with surprising effectiveness" by Collins, although the film's soundtrack proved more successful than the film did.^[60]

Collins had cameo appearances in Steven Spielberg's Hook (1991) and the AIDS docudrama And the Band Played On (1993). He starred in 1993's Frauds, which competed for the Palme d'Or at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival.^[61] He supplied voices to two animated features: Amblin's Balto (1995) and Disney's The Jungle Book 2 (2003). A long-discussed but never completed project was a film titled The Three Bears; originally meant to star him alongside Danny DeVito and Bob Hoskins, he often mentioned the film, though an appropriate script never materialised.^[62]

Collins performed the soundtrack to the animated film Tarzan (1999) for the Walt Disney Company. Collins won an Academy Award for "You'll Be in My Heart", which he performed at that year's telecast as well as during a Disney-themed Super Bowl halftime show. The song, which he also recorded in Spanish among other languages, became his only appearance on Billboard's Hot Latin Tracks.^[42] Disney hired him, along with Tina Turner, in 2003 for the soundtrack to another animated feature film, Brother Bear, and had some airplay with the song "Look Through My Eyes".

On television, he twice hosted the Billboard Music Awards. He also appeared in an episode of the series Miami Vice, entitled "Phil the Shill", in which he plays a cheating con-man. He also guest starred in several sketches with The Two Ronnies. Most recently, he had a cameo appearance on the television series Whoopi.

In 2001, Collins was sought out by the satirist Chris Morris, and appeared in the Brass Eye 'Paedophile Special' endorsing a spoof charity called 'Nonce Sense'. At one point Collins, dressed in a matching baseball cap and t-shirt emblazoned with the name of this fictitious charity, stares into the camera and declares: "I'm talking Nonce-sense."

In 2005, Collins's work on Brother Bear was expanded as Disney used the song "Welcome" as the theme for Walt Disney's Parade of Dreams, the main parade celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Disneyland.

In 2006 Disney's Tarzan was adapted for Broadway. Collins contributed 11 new songs and instrumental pieces, and was deeply involved in the production. Unlike the film, where Collins sang all the material, the characters sang on stage.

Collins made an appearance as himself in the 2006 PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 2 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, set in 1984. He appears in three missions in which the main character must save him from a gang that is trying to kill him, the final mission occurring during his concert, where the player must defend the scaffolding against saboteurs while Phil is simultaneously performing "In the Air Tonight." After this, the player is given the opportunity to watch this performance of 'In the Air Tonight.' "In the Air Tonight" was also featured in the soundtrack of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories and it was also featured in the film Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters, the 2009 movie The Hangover and the 2007 Gorilla commercial for Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate. The advertisement also helped the song re-enter the New Zealand RIANZ Singles Chart at number three in July 2008, the following week reaching number one, beating its original 1981 No.6 peak. Phil Collins had several ties to the hit show Miami Vice with 5 songs used in the course of the series as well as having starred in the episode "Phil The Shill."

Phil Collins was portrayed in the hit cartoon South Park in the episode "Timmy 2000" holding his Oscar throughout, referring to his 1999 win for "You'll Be In My Heart", which defeated "Blame Canada" from South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. He was seen again in the episode "Cartman's Silly Hate Crime".

Phil Collins appears briefly in the Finnish animated sitcom Pasila in the episode "Phil Collins Hangover". The music of this episode is a pastiche of Phil Collins' "Another Day In Paradise".

Personal life[link]

Family[link]

Collins has been married three times. He married Canadian Andrea Bertorelli in 1975. They met as students in a drama class in London.^[63][64] They had a son, Simon Collins, and Collins adopted Bertorelli's daughter Joely Collins, a Canadian actress. They divorced in 1980, after she started an affair with their painter and decorator. Collins later appeared on the BBC's Top of the Pops singing his 1981 solo hit "In The Air Tonight" with a pot of paint and brush positioned near his piano.^[65] Collins has since claimed that the presence of the paint and brush was coincidental.

Collins met his second wife, Jill Tavelman, in 1980. They were married from 1984^[66] to 1996. They had one daughter, Lily Collins, born in 1989.^[67] Collins openly admits that some of their divorce-related correspondence was by fax (one, about access to their daughter, was reproduced in the Sun), but denies that this took her by surprise.^[64] Collins paid Jill £17M as final settlement.^[65]

Collins married his third wife, Orianne Cevey, in 1999 after a five year romance.^[65] They have two sons, Nicholas and Matthew. They bought Sir Jackie Stewart's former house located in Begnins, Switzerland, overlooking Lake Geneva. Announcing their separation on 16 March 2006, they were divorced on 17 August 2008. Collins reportedly paid Cevey £25M in settlement.^[65] Collins has said he will continue to live in Switzerland to be near the children. He is currently residing in Féchy, while also maintaining homes in New York and Dersingham, Norfolk, England.^[65][68] In 2008, Collins was quoted in People Magazine: "Marriage is a difficult proposition. But I haven't given up on it, either."^[69] Collins, however, stated in 2010 that he had no intention of marrying again.^[70]

Fortune[link]

Collins was estimated to have a fortune of £115 million in the Sunday Times Rich List of 2011, making him one of the 20 richest people in the British music industry.^[71]

Court case[link]