Results for Galt MacDermot
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Artist:

Galt MacDermot

  • Genre: Soundtrack
  • Active: '60s - 2000s
  • Instruments: Keyboards, Piano

Biography

In a career packed with varying types of compositions, Galt MacDermot is still best-known for the music he wrote in the late-'60s Aquarian musical Hair. Born and raised in Montreal, MacDermot was the son of a Canadian diplomat. He studied at Bishop's University, then at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, before moving to New York in 1964. Three years later, MacDermot's music for Hair, combined with lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni, made the show first an off-Broadway success, then a Broadway smash, and later a major motion picture. Of the several pop standards are "Let the Sunshine In," "Aquarius," "What a Piece of Work Is Man," "Good Morning Starshine," and the title song. In addition to the musicals, Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Human Comedy, MacDermot composed ballet and film scores, chamber music, band repertory, and drama accompaniments. Also, he formed the New Pulse Jazz Band in 1979. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide

Representative Albums:

Woman Is Sweeter/Shapes of Rhythm, In Film: 1969-1973, Up from the Basement

Similar Artists:

Bob Davis & Rhythm Jesters, Allen Toussaint, King Floyd, Roy Meriwether, Roy Budd, David Axelrod, Rick Wakeman, Lalo Schifrin
 
 
Wikipedia: Galt MacDermot


Galt MacDermot (born 18 December 1928 in Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian pianist, composer and writer of musical theatre. He was educated at Upper Canada College and Bishop's University (Sherbrooke, Quebec). He was trained in music in South Africa and made a study of African music his specialty.

He is best known as the composer of the groundbreaking 1960s rock musical Hair, which ran for nearly 2000 performances in both London and New York, won a Grammy Award in 1969, and was made into a film in 1979.

MacDermot is also popular amongst collectors of jazz, funk and film soundtracks, for the scores he created to minor productions such as Woman is Sweeter and Rhinoceros. Working with high-calibre jazz musicians such as Bernard Purdie, Jimmy Lewis and Idris Muhammad, MacDermot created tight, rhythmical soundtrack pieces which effectively prefigured the funk material of James Brown. Consequently, MacDermot's work from this period has been sampled by hip-hop musicians including Busta Rhymes, who borrowed "Space" for "Woo hah!", and Handsome Boy Modelling School, DJ Vadim, DJ Premier and Oh No (rapper), who have all sampled the same segment from "Coffee Cold".

On 8 August 2006, Oh No in fact released an album on Stones Throw Records, produced completely with Galt MacDermot samples, entitled Exodus into Unheard Rhythms.

Shows

Partial discography

  • Hair
  • Hair Pieces - on Verve Forecast (1967)
  • Corporation
  • Shapes of Rhythm/Woman is Sweeter
  • Up From the Basement Volumes 1 & 2
  • Purdie as a Picture

External links

Galt MacDermot musicals


Persondata
NAME MacDermot, Galt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Canadian pianist and composer
DATE OF BIRTH December 18 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Montreal, Quebec
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH

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Copyrights:

Artist. Copyright © 2008 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Music Guide ® , a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Galt MacDermot".  Read more

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