Bob Dorough

Bob Dorough ( born December 12, 1923 in Cherry Hill, Arkansas) is an American jazz singer, composer and pianist.

Life and work

Dorough was born in the state of Arkansas, but grew up in Texas. During the Second World War, he played in an Army band; then he studied at North Texas State University composition and piano playing. Around 1950 he went to New York and played in Times Square in a tap dance studio piano, where he met the boxer Sugar Ray Robinson, who was temporarily dropped out of the Boxgeschäft and worked on a dance revue. Dorough was set there and also served as the musical director of the show later; with the Revue, he moved through various U.S. cities and to Europe. Dorough left Robinson and his group in Paris, lived there from 1954 to 1955 and took in that time music with singer Blossom Dearie on. Then he went back to the U.S. and moved to Los Angeles, where he among other things, worked with the comedian Lenny Bruce.

In 1956 Dorough his first album under his own name, Devil May Care, on. It contained, inter alia, a sung version of " Yardbird Suite" by Charlie Parker. The trumpeter Miles Davis estimated the album; and as his label Columbia Records inquired with him in 1962 if he would record a Christmas song, he turned because of the text and vocal parts to Dorrough. The title was called " Blue Xmas " and first appeared on the Columbia compilation Jingle Bell Jazz.

So Dorough has remained a larger jazz audience primarily as a " footnote " in the work of Miles Davis in memory: The singer interpreted in this session, in 1962, his short composition " Nothing Like You". It was published until five years later. Than last piece of the Miles Davis album " Sorcerer" of 1967. Doroughs So part contribution to the rare song accompaniments in the work of Miles Davis

Its title, "Comin 'Home Baby, " was in the United States 1962 " Top 40 " hit for Mel Tormé. Several years of Dorough worked as a producer along with Stu Scharf; They produced several albums of folk band Spanky and Our Gang.

Except with Miles Davis, he also worked with Allen Ginsberg. His style was a major influence on Mose Allison and other singers. In the U.S., he also gained a greater awareness through his music for Schoolhouse Rock!, A children's television series that aired in the 1970s and 1980s on the ABC network.

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

Throughout his fifty year career Dorough has published numerous plates; in the 1990s he had a comeback with three albums on Blue Note Records, with companions such as Joe Lovano, Phil Woods, Christian McBride, Billy Hart, Buddy Tate and Ray Drummond; his latest album, entitled Small Day Tomorrow was released in 2006.

Joachim Ernst Berendt and Günter Huisman express in "Jazz Book " to Doroughs vocal style: "(...) he sings the songs of the great composers of the American popular music with the special intensity of contemporary jazz ."

Disco Graphical Notes

Albums under his 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)

Albums as 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 )
• Michael Hornstein: Innocent Gem ( Enja, 1995)
• 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)