Rufus Harley Jr. (May 20, 1936 – August 1, 2006) was an American jazz musician known primarily as the first jazz musician to adopt the Great Highland bagpipe as his primary instrument.
Rufus Harley, Jr. was of mixed Cherokee and African ancestry and although born near Raleigh, North Carolina, at an early age he moved with his mother to a poor neighbourhood in North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He began playing the C melody saxophone at age 12 and also played trumpet. At the age of 22, he began studying saxophone, flute, oboe, and clarinet with Dennis Sandole (1913–2000), an Italian American jazz guitarist who taught several jazz musicians in Philadelphia.
Harley became inspired to learn the bagpipe after seeing the Black Watch perform in John F. Kennedy's funeral procession in November 1963. Then a maintenance worker for Philadelphia's housing authority, Harley began searching the city for a set of bagpipes. Failing to find one, he traveled to New York City, where he found a set in a pawn shop. He purchased the instrument for US$120, quickly adapting it to the idioms of jazz, blues, and funk. On several occasions, when a neighbour called the police to complain about Harley's practicing in his home, he would quickly put away his bagpipes and feign ignorance, asking the officers, "Do I look like I'm Irish or Scottish to you?" He eventually acquired a better set of bagpipes, which cost him a little over US$1,000.
Harley made his bagpipe performance debut in 1964. From 1965 to 1970 he released four recordings as leader on the Atlantic label (all produced by Joel Dorn, an early supporter), also recording as a sideman with Herbie Mann, Sonny Stitt, and Sonny Rollins in the 1960s and 1970s.
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He later recorded with Laurie Anderson (appearing on her 1982 album Big Science) and The Roots (on their 1995 album Do You Want More?!!!??!), the latter coming about due to a 1994 appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show. In addition to bagpipes, on these albums he also occasionally played tenor saxophone, flute, or electric soprano saxophone.
Harley often wore Scottish garb, including a kilt, in conjunction with a Viking-style horned helmet. After seeing him perform on television, a Scottish family gave him his tartan, the MacLeod tartan, which he wore for the rest of his life. His bagpipe technique was somewhat unorthodox in that he placed the drones over his right shoulder rather than his left. He favoured the key of B-flat minor.
Harley lived for much of his life in the Germantown neighbourhood of Northwest Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and frequently gave presentations in Philadelphia-area public schools. During his frequent overseas performance tours, he carried and distributed miniature replicas of the Liberty Bell, the symbol of his hometown, as well as American flags and copies of the U.S. Constitution. He appeared on a number of television programs, including What's My Line?, To Tell the Truth (March 22, 1965 and again c. 2000), I've Got a Secret (October 17, 1966), and The Arsenio Hall Show. He also had a small role in Francis Ford Coppola's 1966 comedy film You're a Big Boy Now, as well as Eddie and the Cruisers (1983). In addition to his performing career, he worked for the Philadelphia Housing Authority for many years.
In 1998 the CD album Brotherly Love was released, on the Tartan Pride label, alongside the book The Jazzish Bagpiper, a photo anthology and conversations with Harley, by Charles A. Powell, the first to compliment Harley's contributions to American music with Celtic bagpipes. His career included performances with many major figures including John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie and Dexter Gordon. Over the last several years, led by his good friend saxophonist Byard Lancaster, Harley had traveled to France with a few other local musicians to perform there.
Harley continued playing the bagpipes, recording and playing live, up until his death and even added another notable entry on his resume along the way—midwife. He helped deliver all nine of his children at home. Harley’s jazz career wasn’t the normal path. He pushed the boundaries of jazz like few others and was a surprise to everyone—except Harley, that is. “There’s only one thing going on,” he told Ebony magazine. “And all you’ve got to do is dig it.”
Harley died of prostate cancer at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia on August 1, 2006. The day before he died, Harley attended the tribute to Philly Joe Jones concert in Germantown to watch his son, Messiah, play trumpet with the Chappy Washington Band.
A posthumous retrospective on Rhino Handmade, Courage: The Atlantic Recordings, was released in November 2006 as a 3,000-copy limited edition and contains all the tracks from his four Atlantic LPs, plus an unreleased track of Pete Seeger and Joe Hickerson's composition Where Have All the Flowers Gone? recorded in 1969.
(Edited from Wikipedia & Atlas Obscura)