Bruce Ricker

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Bruce Ricker (born October 10, 1942 on Staten Island , New York , † May 13, 2011 in Cambridge , Massachusetts ) was an American documentary filmmaker and film producer .

Live and act

Bruce Ricker originally attended City College of New York with the aim of becoming a writer. He went to the city's jazz clubs like Birdland , The Five Spot and Half-Note and heard jazz greats like Tito Puente , John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk there . After graduating in 1965, he served as a police trainee with the New York City Police Department for three years . This was followed by activities as a talent scout, social worker and evening studies at Brooklyn Law School. He also worked for the literary magazine The Provincetown Review . He continued his studies at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, where he obtained a law degree ( Graduate Law Degree in Urban Studies ), briefly taught at the university and from 1971 worked as a lawyer in Kansas City.

Around 1973/1974 he met Jay McShann and other veterans of Kansas City jazz of the 1930s. With McShann's support, he worked on his first documentary The Last of the Blue Devils - The Kansas City Jazz Story in 1974/75 , which he was able to finish in 1979 in New York City. In the film are also among others Count Basie and Big Joe Turner to speak. The film was shown at numerous film festivals and made Ricker known nationwide. In 1980 he began working with Charlotte Zwerin on another music documentary, Thelonious Monk - Straight No Chaser , which was completed in 1988 with the help of Clint Eastwood . In 1982 Ricker founded Rhapsody Films , a company specializing in the production and distribution of jazz and blues films, and produced documentaries on Bill Evans , Sun Ra , Charles Mingus and Coleman Hawkins .

In 1987 Rickers began working with Clint Eastwood, with whom he collaborated on his Charlie Parker biopic Bird . This was followed by film projects such as the documentaries about Tony Bennett , Budd Boetticher ; he also served as musical advisor on the Eastwood films The Bridges of Madison County (1995) and Mystic River (2003). He also produced the 1997 TV special, Eastwood After Hours: Live at Carnegie Hall, about Clint Eastwood. A year before his death, Ricker completed a film portrait of Dave Brubeck ( In His Own Sweet Way ).

Ricker lived in Cambridge , Massachusetts and New York City , New York . He died on May 13, 2011 of pneumonia .

Filmography (selection)

  • 1980: The Last of the Blue Devils (Producer, Director)
  • 1988: Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (co-production)
  • 1997: Eastwood After Hours: Live at Carnegie Hall (Producer, Director)
  • 1998: Jim Hall: A Life in Progress (Director)
  • 2000: American Masters - Clint Eastwood: Out of the Shadows (Producer, Director)
  • 2003: The Blues (2 episodes, production)
  • 2005: Budd Boetticher: A Man Can Do That (Production, Director)
  • 2005: Budd Boetticher: An American Original (Production)
  • 2007: Tony Bennett: The Music Never Ends (Producer, Director)
  • 2009: Johnny Mercer: The Dream's on Me (Director)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bruce Ricker, Documentarian, RIP | Obituary , accessed May 17, 2011
  2. ↑ Obituary in the Kansas City Star  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.kansascity.com  
personal data
SURNAME Ricker, Bruce
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American producer and film director
DATE OF BIRTH October 10, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Staten Island , New York, United States
DATE OF DEATH May 13, 2011
Place of death Cambridge , Massachusetts, United States