Jymie Merritt (May 3, 1926 – April 10, 2020) was an American

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

double-

bassist A bassist (also known as a bass player or bass guitarist) is a musician who plays a Bass (instrument), bass instrument such as a double bass (upright bass, contrabass, wood bass), bass guitar (electric bass, acoustic bass), synthbass, keyboar ...

, electric-bass pioneer, band leader and composer. Merritt was a member of

Art Blakey Arthur Blakey (October 11, 1919 – October 16, 1990) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. He was also known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina after he converted to Islam for a short time in the late 1940s. Blakey made a name for himself in the 1 ...

Jazz Messengers The Jazz Messengers were a jazz combo that existed for over thirty-five years beginning in the early 1950s as a collective, and ending when long-time leader and founding drummer Art Blakey died in 1990. Blakey led or co-led the group from the o ...

group from 1957 until 1962. The same year he left Blakey's band, Merritt formed his own group, The Forerunners, which he led sporadically until his death in 2020. Merritt also worked as a sideman for blues and jazz musicians such as

Bull Moose Jackson Benjamin Clarence "Bull Moose" Jackson (April 22, 1919 – July 31, 1989)Allmusic biography Accessed January 2008. was an American blues and rhythm-and-blues singer and saxophonist, who was most successful in the late 1940s. He is considered a p ...

B.B. King Riley B. King (September 16, 1925 – May 14, 2015), known professionally as B.B. King, was an American blues singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. He introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending, shi ...

Chet Baker Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker Jr. (December 23, 1929 – May 13, 1988) was an American jazz trumpeter and vocalist. He is known for major innovations in cool jazz that led him to be nicknamed the "Prince of Cool". Baker earned much attention and ...

Max Roach Maxwell Lemuel Roach (January 10, 1924 – August 16, 2007) was an American jazz Jazz drumming, drummer and composer. A pioneer of bebop, he worked in many other styles of music, and is generally considered one of the most important drummers in h ...

Dizzy Gillespie John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy Eldridge but addi ...

, and

Lee Morgan Edward Lee Morgan (July 10, 1938 – February 19, 1972) was an American jazz trumpeter and composer. One of the key hard bop musicians of the 1960s, Morgan came to prominence in his late teens, recording on John Coltrane's '' Blue Train'' (1 ...

Early life

Raised in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, Jymie, born James Raleigh Merritt, was the son of Agnes Merritt (née Robinson), a choral director, voice and piano teacher, and Raleigh Howard "RH" Merritt, a businessman and author. After serving in the U.S. Army during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

from 1944 to 1946 Jymie returned home to work for a short time in his father's real estate business, and after a brief flirtation with the clarinet he was inspired by a

Duke Ellington Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based ...

recording featuring bassist

Jimmy Blanton James Blanton (October 5, 1918 – July 30, 1942) was an American jazz double bassist. Blanton is credited with being the originator of more complex pizzicato and arco bass solos in a jazz context than previous bassists. Nicknamed "Jimmie," Blan ...

. Encouraged by his mother he studied with Carl Torello, double bassist for the

Philadelphia Orchestra The Philadelphia Orchestra is an American symphony orchestra, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. One of the " Big Five" American orchestras, the orchestra is based at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, where it performs its subscription ...

, and at the Ornstein School of Music in Philadelphia.

Career highlights

Jymie Merritt worked in jazz, R&B, and

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

. In the early 1950s he toured with rock and roll musicians

Bullmoose Jackson Benjamin Clarence "Bull Moose" Jackson (April 22, 1919 – July 31, 1989)Allmusic biography Accessed January 2008. was an American blues and rhythm-and-blues singer and saxophonist, who was most successful in the late 1940s. He is considered a ...

and Chris Powell moving on to work with bluesman BB King from 1955 to 1957. In 1957, Merritt moved to Manhattan, New York, to work with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. The Messenger ensemble Merritt joined featured his friend

Benny Golson Benny Golson (born January 25, 1929) is an American bebop/hard bop jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, and arranger. He came to prominence with the big bands of Lionel Hampton and Dizzy Gillespie, more as a writer than a performer, before launch ...

as well as

Bobby Timmons Robert Henry Timmons (December 19, 1935 – March 1, 1974) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He was a sideman in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers for two periods (July 1958 to September 1959; February 1960 to June 1961), between which he w ...

and

. Merritt's touring and recording with Blakey extended until 1962, when an unknown ailment forced him to stop touring. By 1964, Merritt was back, working with the trumpeter and vocalist

, and is featured prominently in Baker's unfinished autobiography published under the title ''As Though I Had Wings: The Lost Memoir''. From 1965 to 1968, Merritt worked with the drummer, composer and activist

, not only in the rhythm section but as a composer, recording "Nommo" on Roach's Atlantic album '' Drums Unlimited'' (1966). "Nommo" would earn Merritt a nomination for Best Jazz Composer in ''

DownBeat ' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chi ...

'' magazine's Critics Poll. Merritt left

in the late 1960s to work with trumpeter

, appearing with Gillespie's band on ''

The Dick Cavett Show ''The Dick Cavett Show'' was the title of several talk shows hosted by Dick Cavett on various television networks, including: * ABC daytime, (March 4, 1968–January 24, 1969) originally titled ''This Morning'' * ABC prime time, Tuesdays, We ...

''. One of Jymie Merritt's most productive showcases as a composer was when he reunited with his former Jazz Messenger colleague gifted trumpeter

. Morgan's

Blue Note In jazz and blues, a blue note is a note that—for expressive purposes—is sung or played at a slightly different pitch from standard. Typically the alteration is between a quartertone and a semitone, but this varies depending on the musical co ...

album '' Live at the Lighthouse'' (1970) featuring Merritt's composition "Absolutions" (recorded earlier by Max Roach). In 1962, Jymie Merritt formed and fronted the Forerunners in Philadelphia. The band, which evolved into a music cooperative exploring Merritt's own system of chord inversions, harmonics, and unique approaches to composition and rehearsals, produced a lexicon of its own known as the Forerunner system or concept. The Forerunner concept in its early days culminated in Merritt's expansive composition "Visions of the Ghost Dance". Among the original members of the Forerunner band were

Odean Pope Odean Pope (born October 24, 1938) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Biography Pope was raised in Philadelphia, where he learned from Ray Bryant while young. Early in his career, at Philadelphia's Uptown Theater, Pope played behind a numbe ...

, Kenny Lowe, Donald Bailey, and September Wrice. This group performed regularly in and around Philadelphia for five years, until Merritt joined Max Roach’s band. Pope also joined Roach’s band, playing with him into the 1970s. Forerunner was on and off periodically from the 1960s through the 1980s, depending on what band Merritt was playing with at the time as well as how his health was. Saxophonist Bobby Zankel was a member of the second incarnation of the band when he joined in 1982, which also included Alan Nelson, Odean Pope, Julian Pressley, Colmore Duncan, and Warren McLendon. Zankel is primarily known as an alto player, but played baritone sax with the band, and described the role of the sax section over solos as taking on an accompanying role, where they would always play under the soloist, comparing it to the typical role of the bassist but in the sax section." Approaching his 90th birthday Merritt continued to rehearse and perform with the current incarnation of The Forerunners, many of whom have been with the ensemble from its inception.

Pioneer of the electric bass

Merritt joined the Bull Moose Jackson band in 1949, and was an early adopter of the

Ampeg Ampeg is a manufacturer best known for its bass amplifiers. Originally established in 1946 in Linden, New Jersey by Everett Hull and Stanley Michaels as "Michael-Hull Electronic Labs," today Ampeg is part of the Yamaha Guitar Group. Although ...

bass (a hybrid acoustic-electric instrument). Merritt recalls when he first bought a Fender bass: "Now all this time, I had been playing electric bass, from about the first year of service with the Bull Moose band. We were out in Oklahoma somewhere, when Benny Golson saw this Western band, what you call a hillbilly band, with a fellow playing what looked like a guitar and sounded like a bass. Benny got me over to hear this and we later saw one in a music store. Benny went in for some reeds or something, so I tried a Fender electric bass and that night I took it to work. The owner let me take it and I tried it out working and nobody raised any objection. I had been having trouble with my own bass, one of the assembly line types, so I was in the market for a new bass. Anyway, I got curious and bought the thing and played it for the next seven years or so. I guess at the time I was the only one in jazz playing an electric bass. Certainly, I’m pretty sure Monk Montgomery wasn’t playing one because we used to see him in Minneapolis and he was always interested to see the instrument."

Awards and honors

In November 2013, along with friend and fellow bassist

Reggie Workman Reginald "Reggie" Workman (born June 26, 1937 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American avant-garde jazz and hard bop double bassist, recognized for his work with both John Coltrane and Art Blakey. Career Early in his career, Workman wo ...

, Jymie Merritt received the

Clef Club The Clef Club was an entertainment venue and society for African-American musicians in Harlem, achieving its largest success in the 1910s. Incorporated by James Reese Europe in 1910, it was a combination musicians' hangout, fraternity club, labor ...

of Philadelphia's Living Legend, Jazz Award. At the 2009 Philadelphia Jazz Fair, produced by musician and professor Don Glanden, Philadelphia's University of the Arts and the Jazz Heritage Project honored Jymie Merritt and the jazz organist

Trudy Pitts Gertrude E. "Trudy" Pitts (August 10, 1932 – December 19, 2010) was an American soul jazz keyboardist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was known primarily for playing the Hammond B3 organ. Biography Trained as a musician and a music e ...

with the Jazz Heritage Award. Merritt's award was presented to him by another great Philadelphia bassist, the late

Charles Fambrough Charles Fambrough (August 25, 1950January 1, 2011) was an American jazz bassist, composer and record producer from Philadelphia. Fambrough was a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers during the early 1980s. Suffering from kidney failure, conges ...

. In addition, Jymie Merritt was honored with the Don Redman Heritage Award in June 2008 at a ceremony and concert in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia at the annual event sponsored by the Harpers Ferry Historical Association and the Jefferson County NAACP in cooperation with the Don Redman Heritage Society of Piedmont, West Virginia.

Personal life

Merritt's marriage to Dorothy Viola Small (d. 2008) produced five children: Mharlyn Merritt, a writer and vocalist who received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Jazz Performance in 1988; Marlon Merritt, an accomplished guitarist and retired career Army veteran of the Iraqi War; Martyn Merritt (deceased), world traveler, bon vivant and classical pianist who studied with internationally acclaimed pianist Leon Bates; Marvon Merritt, percussionist and drummer, and

Mike Merritt Michael Merritt may refer to: * Mike Merritt (musician) Michael Monroe Merritt (born July 28, 1955) is an American bassist best known for playing with the Conan O'Brien house bands: The Max Weinberg 7 on ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien'' in New ...

, a renowned bassist in his own right who has performed and recorded with

Levon Helm Mark Lavon "Levon" Helm (May 26, 1940 – April 19, 2012) was an American musician who achieved fame as the drummer and one of the three lead vocalists for the Band, for which he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. H ...

Phoebe Snow Phoebe Snow (born Phoebe Ann Laub; July 17, 1950 – April 26, 2011) was an American roots music singer-songwriter and guitarist, known for her hit 1974 and 1975 songs "San Francisco Bay Blues", "Poetry Man", "Harpo's Blues", and her credited g ...

Johnny Copeland John Clyde Copeland (March 27, 1937 – July 3, 1997) was an American Texas blues guitarist and singer. In 1983, he was named Blues Entertainer of the Year by the Blues Foundation. He is the father of blues singer Shemekia Copeland. In 2017, Co ...

BB King Riley B. King (September 16, 1925 – May 14, 2015), known professionally as B.B. King, was an American blues singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. He introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending, shim ...

and many other world-class musicians. Mike is best known as the bassist for the Basic Cable Band on Conan O'Brien's TBS talk-show. Continuing the family's musical heritage in 2005 Mike co-produced along with his sister Mharlyn an independent CD on the EMerrittus label featuring brother Marlon on guitar,

Uri Caine Uri Caine (born June 8, 1956, Philadelphia, United States) is an American classical and jazz pianist and composer. Biography Early years The son of Burton Caine, a professor at Temple Law School, and poet Shulamith Wechter Caine, Caine began ...

Al Kooper Al Kooper (born Alan Peter Kuperschmidt; February 5, 1944) is a retired American songwriter, record producer and musician, known for organizing Blood, Sweat & Tears, although he did not stay with the group long enough to share its popularity. ...

Lew Soloff Lewis Michael Soloff (February 20, 1944–March 8, 2015) was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and actor. Biography From his birth place of New York City, United States, he studied trumpet at the Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard Sc ...

and the Vivino Brothers entitled "Alone Together". Merritt had a younger brother, LeRoy Merritt, an amateur artist and arts and crafts enthusiast who lived in West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Merritt lived in

Center City, Philadelphia Center City includes the central business district and central neighborhoods of Philadelphia. It comprises the area that made up the City of Philadelphia prior to the Act of Consolidation, 1854, which extended the city borders to be coterminous wi ...

, with his wife Ave and his cat Jazzie. He died on April 10, 2020 of

liver cancer Liver cancer (also known as hepatic cancer, primary hepatic cancer, or primary hepatic malignancy) is cancer that starts in the liver. Liver cancer can be primary (starts in liver) or secondary (meaning cancer which has spread from elsewhere to th ...

in Philadelphia, aged 93.

Discography

As sideman

With

and the Jazz Messengers * ''

Moanin' ''Moanin'' (originally titled ''Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers'') is a jazz album by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers recorded in 1958 for the Blue Note label and released in 1959. Background This was Blakey's first album for Blue Note ...

'' (Blue Note, 1958) *'' 1958 - Paris Olympia'' (Fontana, 1958) * ''Des Femmes Disparaissent'' (Soundtrack) (Fontana, 1958) *'' At the Jazz Corner of the World'' (Blue Note, 1959) *''Just Coolin'' (Blue Note, 1959) * ''Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960'' (Fontana, 1959) - Original Soundtrack with Barney Wilen *'' Africaine'' (Blue Note, 1959) *'' Paris Jam Session'' (1959) *'' The Big Beat'' (Blue Note, 1960) *''

Like Someone in Love "Like Someone in Love" is a popular song composed in 1944 by Jimmy Van Heusen, with lyrics by Johnny Burke. It was written (along with "Sleigh Ride in July") for the 1944 film, ''Belle of the Yukon'', where it was sung by Dinah Shore. It was a hi ...

'' (Blue Note, 1960) *''

A Night In Tunisia "A Night in Tunisia" is a musical composition written by Dizzy Gillespie around 1940–42, while Gillespie was playing with the Benny Carter band. It has become a jazz standard. It is also known as "Interlude", and with lyrics by Raymond Leveen w ...

'' (Blue Note, 1960) *''

Mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

'' (Blue Note, 1961) *''A Day with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers'' (1961) *''

Pisces Pisces may refer to: * Pisces, an obsolete (because of land vertebrates) taxonomic superclass including all fish * Pisces (astrology), an astrological sign * Pisces (constellation), a constellation **Pisces Overdensity, an overdensity of stars in ...

'' (1961) *'' The Freedom Rider'' (1961) *'' Roots & Herbs'' (1961) *''

Three Blind Mice "Three Blind Mice" is an English-language nursery rhyme and musical round.I. Opie and P. Opie, ''The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 306. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number o ...

'' (1962) *''

Buhaina's Delight ''Buhaina's Delight'' is a jazz album released by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers in 1963. Produced by Alfred Lion, the album was recorded in two sessions on November 28, 1961 and December 18, 1961 at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, Ne ...

'' (1963) With

*'' The Most Important Jazz Album of 1964/65'' (Colpix, 1964) With

Sonny Clark Conrad Yeatis "Sonny" Clark (July 21, 1931 – January 13, 1963) was an American jazz pianist and composer who mainly worked in the hard bop idiom. Early life Clark was born and raised in Herminie, Pennsylvania, a coal mining town east of Pi ...

*'' Standards'' (Blue Note, 1959) With

Curtis Fuller Curtis DuBois Fuller (December 15, 1932May 8, 2021) was an American jazz trombonist. He was a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and contributed to many classic jazz recordings. Early life Fuller was born in Detroit on December 15, 1932. ...

*''

South American Cookin' ''South American Cookin is an album by jazz trombone, trombonist Curtis Fuller, released in 1961 on the Epic Records, Epic label.Soul Trombone'' (Impulse!, 1961) With

*''

The Other Side of Benny Golson ''The Other Side of Benny Golson'' is the third album by saxophonist Benny Golson featuring performances recorded in late 1958 and originally released on the Riverside label.

'' (Riverside, 1958) With

*'' Live at the Lighthouse'' (Blue Note, 1969) *'' The Last Session'' (Blue Note, 1972) With

*'' Drums Unlimited'' (Atlantic, 1965) *'' Members, Don't Git Weary'' (Atlantic, 1968) ;With

Jimmy Witherspoon James Witherspoon (August 8, 1920 – September 18, 1997) was an American jump blues singer. Early life, family and education Witherspoon was born in Gurdon, Arkansas. His father was a railroad worker who sang in local choirs, and his mot ...

* ''

The Blues Is Now ''The Blues Is Now'' is a 1967 studio album by the American singer Jimmy Witherspoon, accompanied by organist Jack McDuff. Reception Thomas Ward reviewed the album for Allmusic and described ''The Blues Is Now'' as "arguably the finest" of With ...

'' (1967) ;With

Wayne Shorter Wayne Shorter (born August 25, 1933) is an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Shorter came to prominence in the late 1950s as a member of, and eventually primary composer for, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. In the 1960s, he joined Miles Davi ...

* '' Wayning Moments'' (1962)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Merritt, Jymie 1926 births 2020 deaths American jazz double-bassists Male double-bassists Hard bop double-bassists The Jazz Messengers members Military personnel from Philadelphia Musicians from Philadelphia Jazz musicians from Pennsylvania 21st-century double-bassists American male jazz musicians