Ritchie Cole RIP...

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

"BUFFALO JAZZ...."Alto saxophone great Richie Cole once referred to in Downbeat magazine as “the sax machine,” has died at the age of 72. Cole is believed to have passed away in the early morning hours of Saturday, May 2nd. Details regarding his death are currently unknown. This article will be updated as new information becomes available.

Richie Cole was a prolific composer who has recorded over 50 albums with the likes of Eddie Jefferson, the Manhattan Transfer, Bobby Enriquez, Freddie Hubbard, Sonny Stitt, Art Pepper, Tom Waits, Boots Randolph, and Nancy Wilson. He performed at the historic Village Vanguard and Carnegie Hall. Cole even gave a command performance for Queen Elizabeth II.

Years ago, the prominent jazz critic Leonard Feather noted Cole’s lively and informal presentations and “the free-wheeling and sometimes satirical nature of his performances.” The website About Jazz says Cole “is the last of a breed — a fast and competitive musical gunslinger acquiring legendary status for his willingness to demonstrate his command of Charlie Parker’s bebop language by taking on all comers at any speed.”

RIP.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks for the notification, Bluesie.

One of those people who seem to have been around for longer than was the case.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

He seemed everywhere at one time, those records on Muse etc. Can't say I was a great fan, the line "if you've already got one very good Phil Woods, why another one." But I think he mellowed in latter years and I didn't keep up. Sad to see another go though.

[Ian Thumwood]

There was a really interesting article a few years ago on one of the websites which explained what had happened to Richie Cole. He was still regularly making records but, from recollection, he was another musician heavily involved with education. I am pretty sure that there was also something about him living on a yacht.

As you say, he was around a lot in the 1980s and then his profile seemed to diminish. The thing about his music that I recall most was that his whole approach was fun and also that he employed a pianist called Bobby Enriquez. I always thought that he was from South America but it transpires that he was from the Philippines. There was a Channel Four programme featuring Cole in the early 80s and the pervading image from this concert was Enriquez smashing the keyboard with his hands. I had to look him up on Google although the fact that he was known as "The Wild Man" stuck in my mind. I remember watching it on TV with my Dad (must have been around 82/83) and both thinking that this was really dreadful and that the pianist was crazy. It wasn't so much a case of extended technique, just stupidity really. I got the impression that Enriquez was not particularly respected at the time. He got a lot of bad press in the Jazz Journal. I had forgotten all about him.

With regard to Richie Cole, you cannot envisage someone coming to jazz now and trying to make a career playing be-bop. I think it was fair play that he remained faithful to the tradition.

I was trying to think of the other alto saxophonist who was a pupil of Jackie Mclean who was seriously hyped in the late 1980s and it was Chris Hallyday . Again, he ended up becoming a big player in jazz education in America. He is probably best remembered now for one of Brad Mehldau's first record appearances in the early 1990s.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

There was a really interesting article a few years ago on one of the websites which explained what had happened to Richie Cole. He was still regularly making records but, from recollection, he was another musician heavily involved with education. I am pretty sure that there was also something about him living on a yacht.

As you say, he was around a lot in the 1980s and then his profile seemed to diminish. The thing about his music that I recall most was that his whole approach was fun and also that he employed a pianist called Bobby Enriquez. I always thought that he was from South America but it transpires that he was from the Philippines. There was a Channel Four programme featuring Cole in the early 80s and the pervading image from this concert was Enriquez smashing the keyboard with his hands. I had to look him up on Google although the fact that he was known as "The Wild Man" stuck in my mind. I remember watching it on TV with my Dad (must have been around 82/83) and both thinking that this was really dreadful and that the pianist was crazy. It wasn't so much a case of extended technique, just stupidity really. I got the impression that Enriquez was not particularly respected at the time. He got a lot of bad press in the Jazz Journal. I had forgotten all about him.

With regard to Richie Cole, you cannot envisage someone coming to jazz now and trying to make a career playing be-bop. I think it was fair play that he remained faithful to the tradition.

I was trying to think of the other alto saxophonist who was a pupil of Jackie Mclean who was seriously hyped in the late 1980s and it was Chris Hallyday . Again, he ended up becoming a big player in jazz education in America. He is probably best remembered now for one of Brad Mehldau's first record appearances in the early 1990s.

Funny you should mention Hollyday because I went through a "whatever happened to" moment about him a few weeks ago and looked him up. After he was summarily dropped from RCA & associated management & promotion, he had a complete rethink, came off the road, taught at secondary school and then went to Berklee to study full time, including clarinet, arranging etc. He says they were very "surprised" that a guy who had regularly played at the Vanguard etc and worked with the NY "cream", would actually just enrol like any other grad student. But, he really needed to do it and completed a degree and masters in record time, studying right through the vacations. He's recording again for his own label, teaches privately and working to come back onto "the scene". He seems a decent guy, no longer the Wunderkind, and to have grown up a lot, not a Jackie McLean foil. His working band is on YouTube. Good, if not perhaps exceptional.