Galt MacDermot

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Galt MacDermot (born December 18, 1928 in Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian pianist, composer and writer of musical theatre. He was educated at Upper Canada College and Bishop's University (Sherbrooke, Quebec). He was trained in music in South Africa and made a study of African music his specialty.

Galt wrote the music for Cotton Comes to Harlem, a 1970 blaxploitation film starring Godfrey Cambridge, Raymond St. Jacques, and Redd Foxx based on Chester Himes' novel of the same name.

He is best known as the composer of the 1960s rock musical Hair, which ran for nearly 2000 performances in both London and New York, won a Grammy Award in 1969, and was made into a film in 1979 [1].

Galt's follow up musical entitled "Who the Murderer Was" [2] featured British progressive rock band Curved Air.

MacDermot is also popular amongst collectors of jazz, funk and film soundtracks, for the scores he created to minor productions such as Woman is Sweeter and Rhinoceros. Working with high-calibre jazz musicians such as Bernard Purdie, Jimmy Lewis and Idris Muhammad, MacDermot created tight, rhythmical soundtrack pieces which effectively prefigured the funk material of James Brown. Consequently, MacDermot's work from this period has been sampled by hip-hop musicians including Busta Rhymes, who borrowed "Space" for "Woo hah!", and Handsome Boy Modelling School, DJ Vadim, DJ Premier and Oh No (rapper), who have all sampled the same segment from "Coffee Cold".

On 8 August 2006, rapper Oh No released an album produced completely with Galt MacDermot samples, entitled Exodus into Unheard Rhythms, on Stones Throw Records.


Contents

[edit] Shows

[edit] Partial discography

  • Hair
  • Hair Pieces - on Verve Forecast (1967)
  • Corporation
  • Shapes of Rhythm/Woman is Sweeter
  • Up From the Basement Volumes 1 & 2
  • Purdie as a Picture

[edit] External links

Persondata
NAME MacDermot, Galt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Canadian pianist and composer
DATE OF BIRTH December 18, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Montreal, Quebec
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH


[edit] References

  1. ^ The Hair Pages..
  2. ^ Who the Murderer Was.


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