Collin Walcott

Collin Walcott (born February 24, 1945 in New York City , New York; † November 8, 1984 near Magdeburg , GDR ) was an American percussionist and sitar player . He was one of the pioneers of ethnic jazz .

Life

Walcott studied (non-European) music at Indiana University in Bloomington , Indiana , and the University of California, Los Angeles . He also learned the sitar with Ravi Shankar and used it in the context of jazz and improvised music . He studied tabla with Alla Rakha .

Between 1967 and 1969 he was part of Tony Scott's group and also worked with Tim Hardin . In 1970 he became a member of the Paul Winter Consort . Together with his colleagues there Ralph Towner , Paul McCandless and bassist Glen Moore , he founded the group Oregon in 1971 . He also worked in the ensemble of the composer Meredith Monk . He later founded the Codona group together with Don Cherry and Naná Vasconcelos , in which he developed an early synthesis of Indian, African and Latin American music based on jazz. Due to his sensitive percussion work, especially on the tablas , and his sitar playing, he was also in great demand as a studio musician (e.g. by Richie Havens , Miles Davis , U2 , Larry Coryell , David Darling or Jim Pepper ).

Walcott died in an accident on an East German motorway while touring with Oregon .

Ian Carr , Digby Fairweather , Brian Priestley : Rough Guide Jazz. The ultimate guide to jazz music. 1700 artists and bands from the beginning until today. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 1999, ISBN 3-476-01584-X .
Leonard Feather , Ira Gitler : The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. Oxford University Press, New York 1999, ISBN 0-19-532000-X .
Wolf Kampmann (Ed.), With the assistance of Ekkehard Jost : Reclams Jazzlexikon . Reclam, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-15-010528-5 .

personal data
SURNAME	Walcott, Collin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American percussionist and sitar player
DATE OF BIRTH	February 24, 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH	New York City , New York
DATE OF DEATH	November 8, 1984
Place of death	near Magdeburg , German Democratic Republic