Michael Garrick, who has died aged 78, was a composer and pianist whose work extended well beyond the usual confines of jazz; in a career spanning more than 50 years he employed techniques from the genre to create music for choirs, string quartets, symphony orchestras, and even the organ of St Paul's Cathedral.
Born in Enfield, Middlesex, on May 30 1933, Michael Garrick took piano lessons as a child but was dropped by his teacher after playing In The Mood at a pupils' concert. In later life he recalled feeling a "magnetic attraction" to jazz as a child, but having "no means of getting near it". As a result he was largely self-taught.
Michael Garrick
On leaving school he took a job with the Meteorological Office before being called up for National Service in the RAF. He then read for a degree in English Literature at University College London.
While still a student he formed his first band, a frank imitation of the Modern Jazz Quartet, and secured a few bookings at the Marquee Club as support band to the powerful Jamaican saxophonist Joe Harriott and his quintet. Harriott's bold originality inspired Garrick to abandon imitation and develop a style of his own.
In 1961 he joined the poet and publisher Jeremy Robson in presenting Poetry and Jazz in Concert, a travelling event featuring, at various times, Laurie Lee, Spike Milligan, Dannie Abse, Adrian Mitchell and Vernon Scannell reading their own work. The musical settings were provided by Garrick's trio, plus Harriott and the trumpeter Shake Keane. In this, Garrick was a pioneer of what was about to become a distinctively British subbranch of music: jazz composition inspired by literary works.
During the 1960s Garrick rose to prominence in a remarkable crop of young British jazz composers, which included Mike Westbrook, Neil Ardley, Howard Riley and Mike Taylor. Some of his best work of this period, including Dusk Fire (1965) and Black Marigolds (1966), was written for the Don Rendell-Ian Carr Quintet, with which he was the pianist between 1965 and 1969.
In 1966 he also formed his own, semi-regular band of six or seven musicians, incorporating the vocals of Norma Winstone. At the same time he started writing liturgical works. The first, and still best known, was Jazz Praises (1968), recorded in St Paul's with the sextet, a large choir and Garrick himself at the organ. He always vehemently rejected any suggestion that this work was influenced by Duke Ellington's first Sacred Concert, recorded two years previously, or that he had even heard it when he conceived Jazz Praises.
Some idea of the nature and range of Michael Garrick's music in the years that followed can be gained from the titles of a few miscellaneous works: Mr Smith's Apocalypse (1970); Cantata on the theme of the Silence of God; A Hobbit Suite, or Gemstones (1973); A Zodiac of Angels (1988), for symphony orchestra, jazz soloists and singer, chorus and dancers; Hardy Country (1990); and Green and Pleasant Land (2002), for string quartet.
Garrick took every opportunity to introduce others to the delights of music in general and jazz in particular. Quite early in his career he began taking small bands into schools. This gradually developed into a regular programme, which he called his "Travelling Jazz Faculty" (later "Jazz Academy"), to which were added courses for young players at summer schools and, eventually, formal teaching posts at the Royal Academy of Music and Trinity College of Music. In 1970 he became a student himself, when he took up an open fellowship at Berklee School of Music in Boston. By his own admission, he was perhaps the most hyperactive student in the school's history, attempting to study every subject on the curriculum.
Garrick's discography is enormous, stretching from a vinyl EP recorded in 1959 to Tone Poems, the latest CD by his big band, recorded last year. He continued composing and playing almost to the end.
He was appointed MBE in 2010.
Michael Garrick was married twice. He is survived by a daughter of his first marriage and a son and daughter of his second. He also had three sons with a former partner.
Michael Garrick, born May 30 1933, died November 11 2011
Some idea of the nature and range of Michael Garrick's music in the years that followed can be gained from the titles of a few miscellaneous works: Mr Smith's Apocalypse (1970); Cantata on the theme of the Silence of God; A Hobbit Suite, or Gemstones (1973); A Zodiac of Angels (1988), for symphony orchestra, jazz soloists and singer, chorus and dancers; Hardy Country (1990); and Green and Pleasant Land (2002), for string quartet.
Garrick took every opportunity to introduce others to the delights of music in general and jazz in particular. Quite early in his career he began taking small bands into schools. This gradually developed into a regular programme, which he called his "Travelling Jazz Faculty" (later "Jazz Academy"), to which were added courses for young players at summer schools and, eventually, formal teaching posts at the Royal Academy of Music and Trinity College of Music. In 1970 he became a student himself, when he took up an open fellowship at Berklee School of Music in Boston. By his own admission, he was perhaps the most hyperactive student in the school's history, attempting to study every subject on the curriculum.
Garrick's discography is enormous, stretching from a vinyl EP recorded in 1959 to Tone Poems, the latest CD by his big band, recorded last year. He continued composing and playing almost to the end.
He was appointed MBE in 2010.
Michael Garrick was married twice. He is survived by a daughter of his first marriage and a son and daughter of his second. He also had three sons with a former partner.
Michael Garrick, born May 30 1933, died November 11 2011
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