Biography
20 May 1936, nr. Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, d. 31 July 2006, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Harley was raised in Philadelphia in extreme poverty but learned to play a musical instrument, the C-melody saxophone, from the age of 12. In the mid-50s he played in a local jazz group led by drummer Mickey Collins and around 1958 began taking tuition from Dennis Sandole. It was through Sandole that he extended his instrumental arsenal to include tenor and soprano saxophones, clarinet, flute and oboe. It was, however, the Scottish bagpipes that became his primary instrument, this from the early 60s, leading to his becoming the only jazz musician for some decades to use the instrument consistently and the only one for whom it was the primary instrument. Through the 60s and 70s he played as sideman with Herbie Mann (The Wailing Dervishes), Sonny Rollins (The Cutting Edge), Sonny Stitt (Deuces Wild), and others outside jazz including Laurie Anderson (Big Science), and the...
 Read the Full Biography of Rufus Harley
|
Search for Products by
Rufus Harley
|
