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Galt MacDermot Composer - Born December 19, 1928 in Montréal, Québec, Canada

Birth Name Arthur Terence Galt MacDermot

Mini Bio (1) Galt MacDermot was born on December 19, 1928 in Montréal, Québec, Canada as Arthur Terence Galt MacDermot.

Trivia (1) Was twice nominated for Broadway's Tony Award: in 1969, for music of Best Musical nominee "Hair," and in 1972 as Composer of Best Score, with lyricist John Guare, for "Two Gentlemen of Verona."

Arthur Terence Galt MacDermot (born December 18, 1928) is a Canadian-American composer, pianist and writer of musical theatre. He won a Grammy Award for the song "African Waltz" in 1960. His most successful musicals have been Hair (1967; its cast album also won a Grammy) and Two Gentlemen of Verona (1971). MacDermot has also written music for film soundtracks, jazz and funk albums, and classical music, and his music has been sampled in hit hip-hop songs and albums. He is best known for his work on Hair, and in particular three of the songs from the show; Aquarius, Let the Sunshine In, and Good Morning Starshine, all three of which were number one hits in 1969.

Galt MacDermot was born on December 18, 1928 in Montreal, the son of Elizabeth Savage and Terrence MacDermot, a Canadian diplomat. The elder MacDermot, a pianist, exposed his son to a variety of music at an early age. Through his father, young Galt heard opera and show music, classical pieces and swinging jazz, and he decided to pick up the recorder at age 5. By age 8 he had adopted the violin, but it wasn't until he landed behind the piano at age 14 that he took a serious approach to music. Having heard Pete Johnson and Albert Ammons and the infectious boogie woogie sound emanating from the United States, MacDermot was hooked. He took school seriously - and landed a BA in History and English from Bishop University - but dedicated all of his spare time to music. His love for the great Duke Ellington grew and grew, and he became a self-described "jazz freak." In 1950, when the Canadian government appointed his father High Commissioner to South Africa, he moved with his family to Cape Town and enrolled in a music program at the university there.

"The African Experience," as MacDermot now calls his time spent there, would come to influence his musical development greatly. His father, a forward thinking Jamaican native, hated the apartheid system propagated by the South African government. Thus it comes as no surprise that MacDermot embraced the music created by South African blacks. He combed Capetown searching for music. He recalls vividly the African style of drumming, it's rhythms so much more free than the jazz swing rhythm that he had grown accustomed to in North America. He recalls the complex African singing that he now recognizes as the basis of American gospel. He recalls his family's cook, a drummer who schooled him on ways to incorporate new beats into stock rhythmic phrases. And he recalls his summers spent in the North, listening to the work songs of African miners. Attempting to describe his experience, MacDermot states "Once you hear African music, you...," before pausing abruptly. He continues, "It's serious music, they're not faking anything."

However, upon his return to Canada, MacDermot did not immediately put into practice that which Africa had taught him. He assumed the relatively low-key job of organist in a Baptist church and played with two bands on the side - one for club gigs and one focusing on calypso. But it was in Canada that MacDermot would first break into the music industry. He wrote some music for the play "My Fur Lady" in 1955 and ended up landing a record deal with the company that recorded the musical, Laurentien Records. In 1956 Laurentien recorded MacDermot's Art Gallery Jazz, an LP that contained a version of a tune that he had written in Cape Town, "African Waltz." Later, in 1960 while en route to Amsterdam, he stopped in London to play his record to band leader Johnny Dankworth. Dankworth told MacDermot on the spot that he would record the song, but at the time MacDermot thought little of it.

It wasn't until he heard from a friend that English radio was heavily rotating Dankworth's cover that he realized he had his first hit. It was at this point that MacDermot decided to move to England, as he now jokes, "to exploit himself." But it wouldn't be so easy. He found work scarce in England. So scarce in fact, that he moved back to Canada before his royalty checks ran out! But it was in England that he first noticed that popular rhythm was changing from the jazz swing rhythm to the straight 8 pattern favored by R&B and rock artists of the day. And it was in England that he met writer Bill Dumaresq, a Canadian expatriate with whom he would collaborate on many future projects.

He did not remain in Canada long, opting instead to move southward to New York City in 1964. "Cannonball" Adderly had recently covered "African Waltz" (actually releasing an album under the same name!) and MacDermot had won a Grammy for his composition. Through the connections he had established, he met producer Rick Shorter, who at the time was in the business of assembling studio musicians to cut tunes for music publishers. Shorter introduced MacDermot to the mid-Manhattan studio musicians that would become his co-workers for the next few years. He met now legendary drummer Bernard Purdie, then a recent transplant from Maryland. He met bassist Jimmy Lewis, then emerging from a gig with King Curtis' band. And he met "Snag" Napoleon Allen, a guitarist whose rhythm was almost unmatched.

It was with these men that MacDermot would cut his first revolutionary album Shapes of Rhythm in 1966. Realizing that he and his comrades were part and parcel of the change he sensed in popular rhythm, MacDermot suggested that they record an album that reflected the change. He financed the venture, an opus that drew from R&B, jazz and African rhythms and can be categorized as "all but none of the above," and released the LP on his fledgling label, Kilmarnock Records. Kilmarnock was nothing of a money making venture, rather it was a chance for the developing composer to record songs that he could not convince the major labels to release. But it would need a boost to truly get off the ground.

That boost came after a meeting with jazz critic and music publisher Nat Shapiro in 1967. MacDermot told Shapiro that he was interested in writing a musical. Some time (and foot-dragging) later, Shapiro introduced MacDermot to Gerome Ragni and Jim Rado, actors who had just written a provocative play entitled HAIR. The three hit if off, and MacDermot scored the music to Ragni and Rado's words in three weeks. Through Shapiro the trio shopped the play and eventually landed a deal with Joe Papp, an off Broadway producer who opened the show at his Public Theater in New York's Greenwich Village. The show ran a mere 8 weeks and was moved to a midtown disco, The Cheetah, were it continued for another 2 months. It was nothing more than a fluke that producer Michael Butler caught a glimpse of the musical's RCA released album cover. The pink hued cover depicted a series of customarily dressed Native Americans, and Butler, an Indian enthusiast, traveled to midtown to see the show. Although Butler learned that the album cover was misleading, he loved the play and arranged for a true Broadway opening. This was the break MacDermot needed. The play took off tremendously, and MacDermot, who played with the show's band four months in New York, soon found himself traveling to Los Angeles, England, Montreal, France, Sweden and other faraway locations to observe openings of his musical! Records from all over the world poured into his house - the Mexican HAIR album, the German HAIR, Tom Scott's HAIR to Jazz rendition, Dennis Coffey's HAIR and Thangs LP - every one covering music he wrote. MacDermot had hit it big!

Obviously, HAIR secured MacDermot's finances. But rather than squander the money he earned, MacDermot utilized his funds to build Kilmarnock's catalogue and record music that he enjoyed. And what a pool of musicians he could choose from! Besides the aforementioned studio musicians, MacDermot had befriended drummer Idris Muhammad, bassist Wilbur "Bad" Bascomb and guitarist Charlie Brown among others. He called upon these talents to record such albums as the soundtrack to Martine Barrat's documentary Woman is Sweeter and the various film and show scores he was asked to provide. The music he composed during this time has incorrectly been termed "rock." This is not true. He and his musicians were all steeped in the tradition of jazz and R&B and many were instrumental in the development of the music we now call "funk." MacDermot's scores were in a league of their own, and (not surprisingly) his records did not appeal to the commercially oriented buyer. Many of his Kilmarnock records, rather than reaching the public, ended up stored in a large portion of his Staten Island basement!

As he entered the 1970s, MacDermot remained extremely active. He recorded an incredible instrumental album by the HAIR band for one of his only United Artists releases. And if the revolution he helped bring to Broadway was not enough, he also took place in a filmic revolution as well. He scored the 1970 Cotton Comes To Harlem, one of the first films to break Hollywood's trend and appeal to a black audience. The film, Ossie Davis' directorial debut, helped usher in films that addressed the black American plight (see Melvin Van Peebles maverick Sweet Sweetback's Badass Song) and MacDermot's funky score hinted at the direction that composers like Isaac Hayes and Curtis Mayfield would adopt with their film forays. He scored the 1971 musical Two Gentlemen of Verona for which he won a Tony Award and he picked up projects as they appealed to him. Some, like the musical Dude he wrote with Gerome Ragni, and the opera Via Galactica he wrote for guitarist Billy Butler, flopped financially. But through and throughout he recorded an enormous amount of material that almost always won praise. As the 70s progressed, he moved away from Broadway and recorded more instrumental music, as this was his first love.

From 1974 through 1978 MacDermot traveled extensively to Trinidad, working with acclaimed playwright Derek Walcott. This is not to say that he totally eschewed the United States, as he composed the score to the wild film Rhinoceros in 1975 and recorded a Ballet score La Novela in 1976. But he searched for a new direction to take his music, something he would discover as he re-scored HAIR for its 1979 film release. Working heavily with string and horn arrangements invigorated MacDermot, and he formed his New Pulse Jazz Band shortly thereafter to continue in this new vein. The band recorded almost annually, but eventually grew too big for its composer, at it's height hosting 12 members! MacDermot eventually stripped the band to its nucleus, Bernard Purdie on drums, "Bad" Bascomb on bass, Charlie Brown on guitar, Allen Won on sax, son Vincent MacDermot on trombone and the composer himself on keys. The band has remained the same ever since, give or take a couple of singers! The band rehearses weekly, gives an annual concert at Carnegie Hall and Kilmarnock releases at least one New Pulse album per year.

Although the New Pulse Band kept MacDermot active as it gave him a venue to test out his new compositions (he composes almost daily!), by the late 80s, MacDermot felt that he given up the business aspect. However, in 1990 he began to receive requests from hip hop artists to sample tunes he composed some twenty years earlier. Producer Pete Rock was perhaps one of the first to discover that MacDermot's compositions were perfect for rap tracks. Rock, an obvious HAIR fan, sampled the Broadway cast version of the song "Where Do I Go" as the basis for Run DMC's "Down With The King," for which MacDermot later won the 1990 ASCAP top R&B award. Rock also used Geoff Love's version of "Where Do I Go" for the song "Can't Front On Me" on his groundbreaking LP debut Mecca and the Soul Brother, with lyricist CL Smooth. Producer Buckwild followed in Rock's tracks, utilizing the song "Ripped Open By Metal Explosions" for New Jersey rappers Artifacts' "C'mon with the Get Down." And groups from Naughty by Nature to Masta Ace Inc. grabbed melodies from MacDermot's Cotton Comes to Harlem LP.

Enterprising New York rap producers and record collectors, knowledgeable that MacDermot had released limited runs of extremely funky Kilmarnock Records, sought out the producer at his Staten Island home. One of the first was Ghetto Professional V.I.C., of The Beatnuts fame. He called the composer out of the blue inquiring about Woman is Sweeter and Shapes of Rhythm and was informed that MacDermot still had original copies in his basement. MacDermot invited him to his home, beginning a mutually beneficial relationship. V.I.C. bought records and distributed them to collectors and producers in New York City. And MacDermot learned about hip hop through V.I.C. and the friends he brought with him, notably JuJu, one of The Beatnuts key members and Lord Finesse. By 1995, previously unheard MacDermot gems, like 1971's The Nucleus, circulated throughout New York.

Tumbling Dice producer Rashad Smith stumbled upon a copy of Woman is Sweeter and found a chord change in the song "Space" that suited his fancy. He looped the beat in his sampler and played his concoction to rapper Busta Rhymes, then emerging from his stint with Leaders of the New School. Busta liked the melody and used it as the backdrop to his 1995 platinum-selling smash "Woo-Haa! Got You All In Check," the anthem that established him as a superstar. Smith, a Staten Island resident himself, later sought MacDermot out and the two became friends. It may appear odd that a 70-year-old composer can relate to the hip hop generation. But MacDermot does not approach hip hop as many from his generation do. He enjoys the music - perhaps best summing up its power by saying, "Hip hop saved the R&B feel - it gave another life to it." And the hip hop generation continues to appreciate MacDermot and his compositions. Bootleggers, attempting to meet the demand for MacDermot's rarest works, have released countless numbers of his songs on illegitimate compilations. New York used record stores that cater to the hip hop generation have entire sections dedicated to the music from HAIR. And artists from The Beastie Boys to Prince Paul continue to utilize MacDermot's compositions.

Now, in the beginning of the second millenium, the composer is as active as ever. The New Pulse band is in the process of rehearsing material for a new CD. A recent sold out funk show in Nashville, Tennessee has led to the possibility of a mini tour for MacDermot and old chums Purdie and Bascomb. And Kilmarnock continues to reissue some of the composers best works to an appreciative record buying public. Expect to hear more from Galt MacDermot - "composer of HAIR," and, as we hope you now realize, leagues more!

For more information about Galt MacDermot and his music visit the following link:

John Holleman's thorough site of the works of Galt MacDermot:

http://www.mindspring.com/~holleman1/