Cornelius Bumpus (May 7, 1946 – February 3, 2004) was an American woodwind, keyboard player and vocalist from Santa Cruz, California.
He began his career playing alto saxophone at ten for the school band and by 12 was playing at Luso-American dances. In 1966 he was in Bobby Freeman's band and after this he began his associations with well-known groups.
His role in these bands was primarily as a saxophonist. His most notable work would be with the Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan. Bumpus and his bandmates in Steely Dan won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2001. In 2002 he worked on the Big Blue Earth project sponsored by the Church of Christ, Scientist. Bumpus enjoyed a short tenure with Café Society, a Los Angeles pop band, during the 1980s where he played in a horn section with the trombonist Dan Levine and trumpeter Anne Petereit King. In 1981, Bumpus issued his first solo LP, A Clear View, which featured his singing, writing and sax playing, stretching out with the band on several, long, jazzy jams over 6 minutes each. Bumpus died of a heart attack in 2004 while on a flight from New York to Los Angeles, aged 57.[1]
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||