Dick Berk
Dick Berk (actually Richard Alan Berk, May 22nd, 1939 in San Francisco, † February 8, 2014 ) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader of the hard bop.
Life and work
Dick Berk played as a teenager in Begleitbands of Billie Holiday and Anita O'Day, studied at Berklee College of Music and played in the early 1960s in the Boston area. In 1962 he moved to New York City and worked there from 1962 to 1964 in a quintet with Ted Curson and Bill Barron (The New Thing & the Blue Thing ). After that he worked among others with Charles Mingus, Mose Allison, Freddie Hubbard and Walter Bishop Jr.. In 1964 he was a member of a quartet of Don Friedman with Attila Zoller.
In 1968 he moved to Los Angeles, where he worked with Charlie Byrd, Milt Jackson, George Duke, Cal Tjader, Jean -Luc Ponty and Blue Mitchell. In the early 1980s he founded the formation Jazz Adoption Agency and participated in various formations several albums for Nine Winds, reservoir and Discovery Records on, inter alia, with John Hicks and Ken Filiano. Berk remained active until the 2000s, played among others with Nick Brignola, Mike Fahn, Dick Sudhalter, Jessica Williams and John Patitucci.
In addition to his work as a musician Berk appeared in various films, such as Raging Bull (1980 ), New York, New York ( 1977) by Martin Scorsese and The Tic Code (1999, directed by Gary Winick ). He also had roles in television shows and sitcoms Hogan's Heroes, It Takes a Thief and emergency California. Berk also appeared in the documentary The Legend of Bop City ( 1998) by Carol P. Chamberland.
Disco Graphical Notes
- Rare One ( Discovery Records, 1983)
- Big Jake ( Discovery, 1984)
- More Birds Less Feathers ( Discovery, 1986)
- Music of Rodgers & Hart (Trend Records, 1988)
- Let's Cool One (Reservoir Records, 1991)
- Bouncin 'With Berk ( Nine Winds, 1991)
- East Coast Stroll ( Reservoir, 1993)
- One by One (Reservoir, 1995)