Dee Barton
Dewells " Dee " Barton Jr. ( born September 18, 1937 in Houston, † December 3, 2001 in Brandon ( Mississippi)) was an American jazz musician ( trombone, percussion ), arranger and film composer.
Life and work
Barton grew up in Starkville on ala son of a high school band leader. He graduated from North Texas State University, where he played in the One O'Clock Lab band, and in 1961 Trombonist Stan Kenton to switch the following year at the drums. Barton, who like Adventures In Jazz (1961) and Mellophonium Moods (1962 ) participated in Kenton albums, wrote for the Kenton band, the title Turtle Talk and Waltz of the Prophets. By the end of 1963, he remained with Kenton, then worked as a freelance composer and arranger. In 1965 he moved to Los Angeles and wrote music for television shows and commercials. In 1967, he starred again with Kenton as a drummer and composed the music for his album The Jazz Compositions of Dee Barton ( Capitol, 1968).
Barton left Kenton in 1969 to start his own big band, with which he performed in night clubs of North Hollywood. There, Clint Eastwood became aware of the bandleader and asked Barton if he wanted to compose film music for him. In the following years he wrote, inter alia, the soundtracks of Sadistico (1971 ), High Plains Drifter (1973 ) and Michael Cimino's action comedy The devil takes the hindmost (1974). In the 1970s and 1980s, he worked in Memphis ( Tennessee) for television. Since 1988, he taught, inter alia, the New England Conservatory of Music, at the University of Alabama and Jackson State University in Mississippi. In 1996, the Dallas Jazz Orchestra released an album with Barton's compositions, which was nominated for a Grammy.