MICHAEL GARRICK
Genres: Post Bop, Progressive Big Band, Third Stream, Hard Bop, Classic Fusion • United Kingdom

Michael Garrick MBE (30 May 1933 – 11 November 2011) was an English jazz pianist and composer, and a pioneer in mixing jazz with poetry recitations and in the use of jazz in large-scale choral works. Garrick was born in Enfield, Middlesex, and educated at University College, London, from which he graduated in 1959 with a B.A. in English literature. As a student there he formed his first quartet, featuring vibraphonist Peter Shade. Recordings of this are on HEP (Chronos and Silhouette, released on Gearbox vinyl). Aside from some lessons at the Ivor Mairants School of Dance Music he was "an entirely self-taught musician" (he had been expelled from Eleanor B. Franklin-Pike's piano lessons for quoting from "In the Mood" at a pupils' concert), though he attended Berklee College, Boston, as a mature student in the 1970s. Soon after graduating, Garrick became the musical director of "Poetry & Jazz in Concert", a read more...