Buddy Collette

American jazz musician (1921–2010)

William Marcel "Buddy" Collette (August 6, 1921 – September 19, 2010) was an American jazz flutist, saxophonist, and clarinetist. He was a founding member of the Chico Hamilton Quintet.

William Marcel Collette was born in Los Angeles on August 6, 1921. He was raised in Watts, surrounded by people of all different ethnicities. He lived in a house built by his father in an area with cheap, plentiful land. The neighborhood in which he grew up was called Central Gardens area. For elementary school, he attended Ninety sixth Street School because it allowed black students. Collette began playing piano at age ten, at his grandmother's request. His love for music came not only from his community, but from his parents—his father played piano and his mother sang. In middle school, he began playing the saxophone. That same year, he formed his first band. They played the music of Dootsie Williams, which Collette's parents had received while at a party. The following year, Collette started a band with Ralph Bledsoe and Raleigh Bledsoe. Together they played for less than a dollar each at parties put on by people in the area on Saturday nights. Following this, Collette started a third group which eventually included Charles Mingus on bass. He and Mingus became very good friends. When he was fifteen, Collette became a part of the Woodman brothers' band, along with Joe Comfort, George Reed, and Jessie Sailes. According to Collette, he formed the second dance band at St. Mary's after he refused to join the Bombardiers on baritone sax, and along with most of the remaining fellows in the marching band realized that the dance band service was much easier than general musicians duty. Also in his band were Orlando Stallings on saxophone; James Ellison, Myers Franchot Alexander and Henry Godfrey on trumpet; George Lewis on first trombone; Ralph Thomas on bass tuba; and a few fellows he recalls only by nickname: "the Indian" on bass; "the Spider" and "the Crow" on tenor saxophones. Both dance bands played gigs at the Stage Door Canteen, the USO in San Francisco that featured 24 hour service and entertainment, as featured acts and as back ups to the stars that were performing there, usually unannounced, when they were in the San Francisco area. Buddy Collette and several other black musicians including Bill Green, Charles Mingus, Britt Woodman Milt Holland made concentrated efforts to merge the two unions to one, color blind union in the early 1950s. The group gained national prominence and became one of the most influential West Coast jazz bands, synonymous with the laidback "cool jazz" of the 1950s. In the quintet, Collette played the reeds (tenor and alto saxophones, the flute and clarinet). Later that year, Collette collaborated with Horn in his own flutist ensemble, the "Swinging Shepherds", a four flute lineup. In November 1958, Langston Hughes read poems to accompaniment by Collette and his band at the Screen Directors Theatre in Los Angeles. In 1960, Collette and his band gave a performance in the Newport Jazz Festival documentary "Jazz on a Summer's Day", alongside flutist Eric Dolphy. Collette joined the faculty at California State University, Pomona campus in 1992 where he was a conductor of the jazz and combo band. Collette held important faculty positions at CSULA, CSULB, California State University Dominguez Hills, and Loyola Marymount University. He was designated a Los Angeles Living Cultural Treasure by the city of Los Angeles in the late 1990s, and, in the early 2000s, he was composing music for JazzAmerica, a band of teen jazz virtuosos he co founded. Collette's career and accomplishments were rewarded by the Los Angeles Jazz Society where he received a special commendation, and with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Federation of Musicians. Local 47, for his musical contributions spanning four decades. Collette's legacy lives on through the JazzAmerica program, a non profit organization which he co founded in 1994 that aims at bringing jazz into classrooms in middle school and high schools in the greater Los Angeles area tuition free.