Ron Collier

Ronald William Collier ( born July 3, 1930 in Coleman / Alberta; † 22 October 2003 in Toronto ) was a Canadian jazz trombonist, composer and arranger.

Life and work

Collier began his musical education thirteen years old in Vancouver, where he played trombone in the Kitsilano Boys ' Band. He then studied composition from 1951 to 1954 in Toronto with Gordon Delamont. As the first jazz musician ever, he received a grant from the Canada Council that further studies in New York allowed him to 1960-61 with George Russell and Hall Overton.

Since the 1950s, Collier played in various dance bands in Toronto (including with Mart Kenney and His Western Gentlemen ), but also in the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the orchestras of the National Ballet and the Canadian Opera Company, as well as radio and television orchestras, and has performed with prominent guests such as Billie Holiday and Charles Mingus on. He became a member of the octet by Norman Symonds and founded his own band from 1954 to 1957 as a quartet, then as a quintet, which he occasionally also increased septet and big band. With his quintet and the CBC Symphony Orchestra, he led Symonds ' Concerto Grosso in for jazz quintet and symphony orchestra. Between 1959 and 1965 he produced several recordings with his ensemble.

Collier became an important representative of the Third Stream in Canada. He composed works such as the Sonata for Piano and Jazz Quintet, which he performed with standard Amadio, The City for orchestra and narrator (1960 listed with Don Francks ) and Hear Me Talkin 'To Ya for octet and narrator (UA 1964). After a libretto by Gwendolyn MacEwen he composed the piece carnival, which he performed with his orchestra and Bruno Gerussi as narrator and Fred Stone as Flügelhornst 1969. He also composed the incidental music for The Mechanic (1965 ), the ballet Aurora Borealis (1966 ), music for radio and television shows as well as several film scores.

1967, Collier conducting a big band and a string orchestra Aurora Borealis, the music for the TV drama Night, Lonely Night, and one each composition of Symonds and Gordon Delamont with Duke Ellington as a pianist. The following year he conducted a concert with Ellington with Detroit, and Collier then worked as an arranger for a long time Ellington. He also arranged for Moe Koffman and Rob McConnell.

1972 Collier Composer-in -Residence of the Humber College in Toronto. From 1974 to 1994 he taught composition and arranging here. Among his pupils were, inter alia, Pete Coulman, Scott MacMillan, Jim McGrath, John Roby, Ilmars Sermulis and Doug Wilde. With the band of the College he won in 1975, 1982 and 1986, the Canadian Stage Band Festival. With his own Big Band he was, inter alia, at Ontario Place Jazz Festival in 1979 and a concert at the Ontario Science Centre in 1983.

1997 Collier wrote a version of Oscar Peterson's Canadiana Suite, which was first performed by Fred Strides Big Band and performed by Colliers Big Band at the 1998 Jazz Festival in Ottawa and Toronto. Opened in 2000, the Ron Collier band the Du Maurier Downtown Jazz Festival in Toronto. 2003 Collier was honored as an Officer of the Order of Canada. Since the death of Colliers the Humber College awards a scholarship as Ron Collier Memorial Scholarship.