BLICK o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-08-08 published
BLICK, J David
Suddenly, but peacefully, at home on August 5th 2007, David,
loved husband of Dwyne and formerly of Pat
COOK; proud father
of John and Kate
BLICK and Sarah
KEOGH; step-father of Don and Pat
ROBINSON and Deborah and Brian
SHAW; granddad to Robert, James
and Patrick
BLICK; grandpa David to Lindsay and Michael
ROBINSON
and Jennifer and David
SHAW.
Retired businessman, mentor to many,
respected and admired, lover of music, books and the Toronto
Maple Leafs. A true friend, we will miss him. A celebration of
David's life will be held in September. In lieu of flowers, please
remember him by supporting his beloved alma mater, Saint John's
College, Cambridge www.joh.cam.ac.uk/johnian/support
B... Names BL... Names BLI... Names Welcome Home
BLICK o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-08-11 published
BLICK,
J.
David
Suddenly, but peacefully, at home on August 5th 2007, David,
loved husband of Dwyne and formerly of Pat
COOK; proud father
of John and Kate
BLICK and Sarah
KEOGH; step-father of Don and
Pat ROBINSON and Deborah and Brian
SHAW; granddad to Robert,
James and Patrick
BLICK; grandpa David to Lindsay and Michael
ROBINSON and Jennifer and David
SHAW.
Retired businessman, mentor to many, respected and admired, lover
of music, books and the Toronto Maple Leafs. A true friend, we
will miss him.
A celebration of David's life will be held in September. In lieu
of flowers, please remember him by supporting his beloved alma
mater, Saint John's College, Cambridge www.joh.cam.ac.uk/johnian/support
B... Names BL... Names BLI... Names Welcome Home
BLICK - All Categories in OGSPI
BLISS o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-08-30 published
Gifted keyboard artist, arranger and composer 'could play everything'
Known as Doctor Music, he was music director of shows for Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation and
CTV, and backed up Ray Charles
and scores of other performers, writes Sandra
MARTIN. He also
fronted his own 16-piece band
By Sandra MARTIN with a report from Canadian Press, Page S9
Composer, pianist and record producer Doug
RILEY was a classically
trained musician and a prolific jingle composer who had a major
influence on the sound of popular Canadian music beginning in
the 1970s. Best known by his nickname, Doctor Music, he worked with
many jazz and pop artists and was the leader of a 16-piece vocal
and instrumental ensemble. He produced and performed with Ray
Charles, David Clayton-Thomas, Bob Seger, Ringo Starr, Gordon
Lightfoot, Anne Murray, Moe Koffman and many others.
Mr. Clayton-Thomas, former lead singer of Blood, Sweat and Tears,
described Mr.
RILEY as a close friend and a brilliant technician
who "could play everything from Tchaikovsky to Thelonious Monk
and then could get down and rock 'n' roll and play the blues,
too. He's irreplaceable. There's only one Doc
RILEY."
Canadian keyboardist Paul Shaffer, musical director of the Late
Show with David Letterman, said Mr.
RILEY was a big influence
on his playing after they met in Toronto in 1968 during auditions
for the musical Hair. They were both accompanying would-be performers
on piano. "He really was an inspiration for those of us thinking
about going into music ourselves."
Doug RILEY grew up in Toronto as the middle of three children
of businessman Norman
RILEY and his wife
Lillian
(MARSHALL)
RILEY.
When he was 2, he contracted polio, which meant he couldn't walk
until he underwent a revolutionary operation at the Hospital
for Sick Children when he was 9. (He walked with a limp for the
rest of his life.) Born with perfect pitch, he seemed to have
emerged from the womb playing the piano, an instrument he began
studying when he was 3. By 5, he was taking lessons at the Royal
Conservatory of Music, eventually studying pipe organ with Harry
Duckworth at Saint Anne de Belleville Church near Montreal, and
piano with Paul DeMarky, Oscar Peterson's piano teacher. At 6,
he discovered jazz by listening to records - mostly his father's
collection of stride and piano boogie 78s that featured such
players as Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, James P. Johnson and
Fats Waller.
As a teenager, he played rhythm and blues with a group called
The Silhouettes at the Toronto nightclub the Blue Note. He attended
the University of Toronto, graduating with a bachelor of music
degree in 1965, after having studied composition with John Weinzweig
and ethnomusicology with Mieczyslaw Kolinski. Later, he did postgraduate
work with Prof. Kolinski on the music of the Iroquois.
Even while at university, he was a prolific composer of jingles,
working with Mort Ross, Tommy Ambrose and Larry Trudel (through
Trudel Productions). By the early 1990s, he had composed more
than 2,000 catchy commercial tunes.
Drummer Bob MacLaren played in a jazz group led by Mr.
RILEY
and worked steadily with him recording jingles in the 1970s and
1980s, including a campaign for Labatt Blue and Carlsberg. "He
would go to the production meeting one day and write the music
that night, and the next morning we would record it and the singers
would come in and the voice over would be done by the afternoon."
The next day, they would repeat the process. "He was a workhorse,"
said Mr. MacLaren.
"He had an ear for the commercial, but he was also a writer and
a player and a bandleader. He had all these things going at the
same time and he had respect from the commercial community that
was hiring him and respect from the musicians," he said. "Once
he was on the bandstand and the music started, he was 100-per-cent
player. He loved playing and that's why he never retired."
In one of Mr.
RILEY's earliest recordings, he was the arranger
and second keyboard player for Ray Charles's album, Doing His
Thing. "Ray Charles was my first influence outside of boogie-woogie
and stride pianists like Albert Ammons and Fats Waller," he told
the Toronto Star last year. "I was enthralled by his jazz, blues
and gospel music, and really his roots and my roots were the
same. It was the biggest break of my life when I played organ
and piano and arranged his 1969 album Doing His Thing."
Mr.
Charles asked Mr.
RILEY, who was 22 at the time, to join
his band, but after a lot of soul-searching, he decided to stay
in Toronto and write music.
He found steady work as a studio musician in television working
as an arranger and pianist for The Ray Stevens Show from 1969 to
1970 and Rolling on the River from 1970 to 1972, both of which
aired on CTV. He also served as music director for Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation's Music Machine from 1973 to 1974 and
Tommy Ambrose's Celebration from 1975 to 1976 and The Wolfman
Jack Show the following year. He went back to CTV in 1981 to
work for a season on Ronnie Hawkins's Honky Tonk and also did
specials with Anne Murray, Lou Rawls and others.
As a player, he performed as a sideman for jazz and pop artists,
including Tommy Ambrose, Dianne Brooks, Mr. Clayton-Thomas, Dan
Hill, Klaatu, Mr. Koffman, Mr. Lightfoot, Bob McBride, Kathryn
Moses, Ms. Murray, Walter Rossi, Sweet Blindness, Sylvia Tyson,
the Brecker Brothers and Mr. Seger.
He also formed his own group, Doctor Music, a 16-piece vocal and
instrumental ensemble. The band made three albums between 1972 and
1974: Doctor Music, Doctor Music II, and Bedtime Story. The last
consisted largely of jazz compositions by Mr.
RILEY and band
members Claude Ranger and Don Thompson. His most popular singles
were One More Mountain to Climb (1971), Sun Goes By (1972), and
Long Time Comin' Home (1972), all of which were included on the
compilation Retrospective (GRT). The group disbanded in 1997,
soon after recording a fourth album.
In the 1990s, he began focusing on live performances and formed
a quartet with saxophonist Phil Dwyer in 1993. Late in 1998,
he and his second wife, Jan, bought a restored farmhouse near
souris, Prince Edward Island, and settled there permanently in
2005. Walking on the beach near his farmhouse, he began to hear
and feel the beginnings of what would become the Prince Edward
Island Suite for Symphony and Jazz. The piece had its premiere
at the Isabel Bader Theatre in Toronto and has since been known
to evoke such emotion in Island audiences that tears begin to
flow.
"His concerts had been a highlight of the season for the last
several years," said University of Toronto historian Michael
BLISS, who spends summers on Prince Edward Island and is a patron
of the Indian River Festival. "He was just a wonderful pianist&hellip
there have been concerts where Doug was simply the accompanist
and done a much better job than the featured performer."
Prof. BLISS said the Island was very proud of Mr.
RILEY. "He
had an immediate and big impact on the musical scene here."
Mr. Clayton-Thomas considered Mr.
RILEY his closest musical collaborator
and friend. "Canada just lost a musical giant," he told Canadian
Press in a telephone interview from Montreal on Tuesday, his
voice shaking with emotion. "I can't imagine my life without
him," he said. "I loved him beyond what I could tell you."
Mr. RILEY was supposed to have shifted into semi-retirement,
playing golf and performing frequently with the Indian River
Festival. But he loved playing so much that he couldn't resist
invitations, and
so Mr. RILEY, a smoker who enjoyed a drink and
suffered from diabetes, spent a great deal of his time on airplanes
travelling from one festival to another, one performance to another.
That is what took him to Calgary late last week to play in a
jazz and blues Festival.
He was jazz organist of the year from 1993 to 2000 at the annual
Jazz Report Awards and was named a member of the Order of Canada
in 2004.
Douglas Brian
RILEY was born in Toronto on April 24, 1945. He
died of a massive heart attack in an airplane on the tarmac in
Calgary on Monday, August 26, 2007. He was 62. He is survived
by wife Jan
RILEY, sons Ben and Jesse from his first marriage,
two siblings and his extended family. Musical celebrations of
his life are being planned for October in Toronto and Charlottetown.
B... Names BL... Names BLI... Names Welcome Home
BLISS - All Categories in OGSPI