US music new sites are reporting the death at age 85 of jazz drummer and occasional vocalist GRADY TATE. Reports say that he passed on Sunday 8th October.
Born in North Carolina in 1932, Tate moved to New York in the early 60s and it was in Manhattan that he died. Initially his move to NYC was to join the Quincy Jones band. Self-taught, Grady soon became an in demand drummer for many big jazz names…. including Jimmy Smith, Wes Montgomery, Astrud Gilberto, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Stan Getz.
Between 1968 and 1974 Grady was a member of the house band on the top rated Johnny Carson “Tonight” TV show and for the first four years of the 70s he also played with the New York Jazz Quartet. Blessed with a rich baritone voice, Tate also recorded as a singer – with maybe his best known album being ‘Windmills Of Your Mind’. His other vocal achievements include providing vocals on the children’s series ‘Schoolhouse Rock’.
In 1989 he was honoured to become a teacher at Howard University
