Ray Draper

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Raymond Allen "Ray" Draper (* 3. August 1940 in New York ; † 1. November 1982 ) was an American jazz - tuba player .

biography

Draper came from a musical family - his father Barclay Draper was a trumpeter, his mother a pianist - and was part of the New York hard bop scene at a very young age, even while studying music at the Manhattan School of Music . Acted as a downright child prodigy, he first attracted attention to his instrument, which was practically not yet used for solo tasks in modern jazz, at the end of the 1950s. He graduated from New York High School For The Performing Arts . Draper was "discovered" by the alto saxophonist Jackie McLean , always known as a supporter of young talents , in whose band he played in 1956/57.

Engagements with the drummer Max Roach (1958/59) and the trumpeter Don Cherry followed . Drapers fame is mainly due to an on Nov. 20, 1957 for the record label Prestige rehearsed quintet uptake in collaboration with John Coltrane on tenor saxophone ( The Ray Draper Quintet feat. John Coltrane , Prestige 8228). The tuba player was unable to build on the successes of his first few years: due to his addiction to heroin , he only worked sporadically as a musician in the 1960s. In 1967 he recorded the record Tuba Sounds with a sextet ( Jackie McLean , Webster Young , Mal Waldron , Jimmy DeBrest and Ben Dixon ) . In 1968 he was involved in the recording of Big Black . It wasn't until 1970 that he managed to gain a foothold in the music business for some time when he played in bands of Archie Shepp and Horace Tapscott . As a tribute to the pioneer of the modern jazz tuba, the virtuoso of the same age Howard Johnson Draper included Gravity in the line-up when he founded his tuba ensemble . Ray Draper was murdered in a 1982 robbery in New York; at this point he had practically not been musically active for years.

His posthumous compositions include a symphony and a fugue for brass ensemble .

Discographic notes

literature

  • Gerd Filtgen, Michael Auserbauer: John Coltrane. His life, his music, his records . Edition Oreos, Schaftlach 1989, ISBN 3-923657-02-1 (2nd edition)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In addition to the original LP The Believer, the CD edition of The Believer contains the LP The Ray Draper Quartet featuring John Coltrane , recorded on November 20, 1957 with Ray Draper (tu), John Coltrane, Gil Coggins (p), Spanky DeBrest (b), Larry Ritchie (dr)
  2. ↑ The CD edition contains the second Coltrane / Draper session from fall 1958 as well as a session from 1960 with Coltrane, McCoy Tyner and Billy Higgins
personal data
SURNAME Draper, Ray
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Draper, Raymond Allen (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz tuba player
DATE OF BIRTH August 3, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH November 1, 1982
Place of death New York City