Bob Dorough

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Bob Dorough

Robert Lrod "Bob" Dorough (born December 12, 1923 in Cherry Hill, Arkansas , † April 23, 2018 in Mount Bethel, Pennsylvania ) was an American jazz singer , composer and pianist .

Live and act

Dorough was born in the state of Arkansas but grew up in Texas . During the Second World War he played in an army band; he then studied composition and piano playing at North Texas State University . Around 1950 he went to New York and played the piano in a tap dance studio in Times Square , where he met boxer Sugar Ray Robinson , who had temporarily dropped out of the boxing business and was working on a dance revue. Dorough was hired there and later also served as the show's musical director; with the revue he moved through various US cities and also to Europe . Dorough left Robinson and his group in Paris , lived there from 1954 to 1955 and recorded music with the singer Blossom Dearie during this time . Then he returned to the USA and moved to Los Angeles , where he a. a. worked with comedian Lenny Bruce .

In 1956 Dorough recorded his first album under his own name, Devil May Care . It contained u. a. a sung version of the "Yardbird Suite" by Charlie Parker . Trumpeter Miles Davis loved the album; and when his label Columbia Records asked him in 1962 if he would record a Christmas carol, he turned to Dorough for the lyrics and the vocals. The title was called "Blue Xmas" and first appeared on the Columbia compilation Jingle Bell Jazz .

Dorough is remembered by a larger jazz audience as a "footnote" in the work of Miles Davis: the singer also interpreted his short composition " Nothing Like You " at this session in 1962 . It was released five years later as the last track on Miles Davis '1967 album "Sorcerer". Dorough's contribution is one of the rare vocal accompaniments in Miles Davis' work.

His song "Comin 'Home Baby," was a "Top 40" hit for Mel Tormé in 1962 . Dorough worked for several years as a producer with Stu Scharf ; they produced several albums for the folk band Spanky and Our Gang .

In addition to Miles Davis , he also worked with Allen Ginsberg . His style was of great influence on Mose Allison and other singers. In the USA he also gained greater fame for his music for Schoolhouse Rock! , a children's television series that aired on ABC in the 1970s and 1980s .

Between 1985 and 1995 he toured Europe several times with the German jazz saxophonist Michael Hornstein , the bassist Bill Takas and the drummer Fred Braceful .

Dorough has released countless records over the course of his fifty year career; in the 1990s he made a comeback with three albums on Blue Note Records , with companions like Joe Lovano , Phil Woods , Christian McBride , Billy Hart , Buddy Tate and Ray Drummond ; his last album entitled "But For Now" with Michael Hornstein and Tony Marino was released in 2015 on Enja Records.

Joachim Ernst Berendt and Günter Huismann comment in the "Jazzbuch" on Dorough's vocal style: " (...) he sings the songs of the great composers of American popular music with the special intensity of contemporary jazz ".

Discographic notes

Albums under your own name

  • Bob Dorough Quintet: Devil May Care (Bethlehem, 1956)
  • Bob Dorough / Bill Takes : Sing And Swing (Red, 1984)
  • Right on My way Home (Blue Note, 1997)
  • Too Much Coffee Man (Blue Note, 1998)
  • Who's On First (Blue Note, 1999)
  • Small Day Tomorrow (Candid, 2005)
  • But For Now with Michael Hornstein and Tony Marino, ( Enja , 2015)

Albums as a guest soloist

  • Buddy Banks / Bobby Jaspar : Jazz in Paris - Jazz de Chambre / (Emarcy, 1956) (piano)
  • Harold Danko : Alone but not Forgotten (Sunnyside, 1985/86)
  • Miles Davis: Sorcerer (Columbia, 1967)
  • Blossom Dearie: I'm Hip (Columbia)
  • Sam Most : Bebop Revisited, Vol. 3 (Xanadu, 1953) (piano)
  • Sam Most: Sam Most Plays Bird, Bud, Monk and Miles (Bethlehem, Fresh Sound, 1957)
  • John Zorn - Naked City: Grand Guignol (Avant, 1992)
  • Michael Hornstein : Innocent Green (Enja, 1995)

literature

Web links

Commons : Bob Dorough  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bob Dorough, 'Schoolhouse Rock!' Performer and Writer, this at 94th SFGate , April 23, 2018, accessed the following day. (English)
  2. ↑ The title was recorded as "Blue Xmas" by the short-lived Miles Davis sextet in 1962; in addition to Miles Davis and Dorough, Frank Rehak , Wayne Shorter , Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb participated in the session on August 23, 1962, when the song "Davil May Care" was recorded; they later appeared on the Davis anthology "Facets" of the French Columbia .
  3. ↑ In addition to Dorough, Davis accompanied singer Sarah Vaughan in her session for Columbia Records in the early 1950s ; shortly before his death he had a guest appearance on an album by Shirley Horn . ("I Won't Forget You")
  4. ↑ composed by Dorough and his friend, bassist Ben Tucker
personal data
SURNAME Dorough, Bob
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dorough, Robert Lrod
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz singer and pianist
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Cherry Hill , Arkansas
DATE OF DEATH April 23, 2018
Place of death Mount Bethel, Pennsylvania