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Ben Riley
Riley was born in Savannah, Georgia, but his parents moved to New York City when he was four years old, and he was brought up there. His father was a shipyard worker, and his mother did domestic work. After a couple of years living in Baltimore, Maryland during World War II (when his father was working for the Bethlehem Steel Corporation), the family moved to Sugar Hill, Georgia, where Riley stayed until moving back to New York.
His interest in drumming began in Savannah, where he listened to marching bands, but in New York he lived in the same neighbourhood as Sonny Rollins, Billy Taylor, Jimmy Cobb, and Roy Haynes, from the last of whom especially he learnt a great deal. He then studied with Cecil Scott, a saxophonist and band leader whose band played at the Club Sudan, near the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, and Riley occasionally sat in with them.
Riley then started learning from another drummer, Phil Wright, who became a popular figure in their neighbourhood because of his ability to write out the drum parts from recordings. This enabled the drummers, such as Cobb and Riley, to learn the parts before joining bands. Aside from playing along to records, their main education came from listening to jam sessions organised and attended by masters such as Art Blakey. Among the master drummers who taught and influenced Riley were Philly Joe Jones and Ed Thigpen (with whom he played at The Composer).
In high school Riley played in the school band, and after graduation he joined the army, where he was a paratrooper, and also played with the army band. Upon leaving the army in 1954 he moved to New York, and in 1956 started playing jazz professionally. He played with such musicians as Randy Weston, Mary Lou Williams, Sonny Rollins, Woody Herman, Stan Getz, Billy Taylor, and Johnny Griffin. What made his name, however, and helped direct his career to success, were four years spent playing, touring, and recording with the great pianist, Thelonious Monk.
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Roseanna Vitro: Listen Here
by C. Michael Bailey
Roseanna Vitro is a singer's singer in the same way as Sarah Vaughan and Carmen McRae. She is a studied practitioner of the jazz vocal arts, an interpreter, performer, educator. Her repertoire, taste, and vocal chops are beyond compare. Vitro's ability has evolved horizontally and vertically over 14 recordings and nearly 40 years. The singer's most recent release, Tell Me The Truth (Skyline, 2018), was thematically devoted to the rich music of the American South where Vitro capably migrates from ...
read moreThelonious Monk: Palo Alto
by Mike Jurkovic
Earth-shattering? The best live Thelonious Monk recording ever? Who knows? Probably not. But it is Monk, so Palo Alto, comes to us with all the scholarly fandom brouhaha we accord these wonderful little things that gratefully drop in our laps from troubled time to troubled time. For anyone not paying attention to the jazz chatter of late, the backstory to Palo Alto thumbnails broadly like this: It is 1968 which, as it just so happens, is another troubled ...
read moreAlice Coltrane: Live At The Berkeley Community Theater 1972
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Conventional belief holds that Alice Coltrane was the dreamy, mellifluous partner in John Coltrane's late period, out-there sonic explorations. The truth is otherwise, as attentive listening to the recordings the two Coltranes made together in 1966 and 1967 demonstrates. The misapprehension stems from the gentler albums Alice made for Impulse in the first few years following her husband's passing. A Monastic Trio (1968), Huntington Ashram Monastery (1969), Ptah, The El Daoud (1970), Journey In Satchidananda (1971) and World Galaxy (1972) ...
read moreBen Riley's Monk Legacy
by Russ Musto
This interview was first published at All About Jazz on November 7, 2006. Ben Riley is one of the most richly experienced drummers in jazz today. The Georgia-born drummer came up in Harlem during the second wave of bebop in the fifties, playing with Randy Weston and others. He was at Minton's with saxophonist Eddie “Lockjaw" Davis and anchored the saxophonist's two-tenor quintet with Johnny Griffin, but his true claim to fame came during his years with iconoclast ...
read moreBen Riley: Grown Folks Music
by Raul d'Gama Rose
Ben Riley is best-described as a drummer who has always been the epitome of great taste, elegance and almost certainly possessed of a higher musical intelligence. There is no better recommendation for this than the fact that Thelonious Monk hired him as a drummer, but if further proof were requested , then all that needs doing would be to spin Grown Folks Music, this eloquently bluesy albeit seemingly short session with a rising star on the saxophone, Wayne Escoffery. The ...
read moreBen Riley's Monk Legacy Septet: Memories of T
by J Hunter
Thelonious Monk's place in jazz is quite intact. In addition to the archival efforts of his son, drummer T.S. Monk, plenty of players have overcome the intimidation factor that goes with tackling Monk's singular sound. The issue is not whether Monk covers appear with the same frequency as covers of Ellington or Armstrong; rather, it is whether these attempts follow Monk's lead, taking the music outside the box. Memories of T--the debut disc by Ben Riley's Monk Legacy Septet--serves up ...
read moreBen Riley with Thelonious Monk
by David A. Orthmann
Ben Riley began his four-year association with Thelonious Monk on a moment's notice, joining the It's Monk's Time recording session devoid of any previous playing experience in Monk's quartet, or even the benefit of a single rehearsal.* Riley thus stepped into the drum chair of one of the greatest working jazz bands of the mid-1960s and made his mark without any apparent signs of adjustment or strain. Already an experienced professional, having played in the bands of luminaries such as ...
read moreBen Riley And The Monk Legacy Band To Perform And Sign Autographs At J&R Music And Computer World, Tuesday, October 31 At 12:30 PM
Source:
All About Jazz
Concert To Be Broadcast Live On WBGO Jazz 88.3 FM Jazz drummer Ben Riley and the Monk Legacy Band will perform and sign autographs for fans at J&R Music and Computer World (23 Park Row) on Tuesday, October 31 at 12:30 PM. WBGO Jazz 88.3FM will broadcast and webcast the concert live starting at 12:30 with Midday Jazz host Rhonda Hamilton. The hour-long performance and interview will feature drummer Riley and the Monk Legacy Band performing the music of the ...
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Ben Riley's Monk Legacy Septet Performs at Long Island University's Brooklyn Campus, September 20 at Kumble Theater Free
Source:
Jim Eigo, Jazz Promo Services
Ben Riley's Monk Legacy Septet Performs at Long Island University's Brooklyn Campus, September 20 -Free performance at the Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts-
Brooklyn, N.Y. - An ensemble dedicated to carrying on the legacy of jazz great Thelonious Monk, Ben Riley's Monk Legacy Septet will perform at the Kumble Theatre for the Performing Arts at Long Island University's Brooklyn Campus. Drummer Ben Riley and arranger/trumpeter Don Sickler have taken their deep love and understanding for Monk's music ...
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Sunnyside Releases Kenny Barron's "Live At Bradley's" With Ray Drummond and Ben Riley
Source:
All About Jazz
For more than twenty-five years Bradley's, located in the heart of Greenwich Village, was the home and headquarters of New York City's Jazz community, the place where musicians regularly congregated after their gigs or on their nights off, to have a drink, listen to their peers and hear the latest news of jazz from around the world. Ostensibly, just another of the great city's many piano bars, the proliferation of great players, particularly piano players, in the club, created a ...
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Shane Dahler
drumsPhotos
Music
Bird of Beauty
From: SparkbirdBy Ben Riley
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Ben Riley
Instrument: Drums
Born: July 17, 1933
Died: November 18, 2017
