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The
public probably know Moor for his acting and comedy but may not realise
he was a talented Jazz musician. Moore
was born Dudley Stuart John Moore on April 19th, 1935. Despite his
working-class origins in Dagenham, East London, his diminutive stature
and a deformed left foot, his determination to succeed overcame all
barriers.
Moore
cited Erroll Garner and Oscar Peterson as two of his main musical
influences. His jazz playing was notable for his lightness of touch and
deft right-hand filigrees although his eclecticism, allied to his
absorption with other interests, inhibited the development of a truly
identifiable personal style. For
a while he successfully performed jazz while concurrently appearing in
the groundbreaking comedy revue Beyond The Fringe in London and New York
with Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett. The revue played for
two years in London, then Broadway, and was probably the greatest
assembly of young comic talent to emerge in Britain in the late 20th
century. Moore's
whimsical sense of humour fitted oddly with the more savage satirical
style of his partners. "Apart from his musical contributions to the
show," Cook wrote in Esquire in 1974, "Dudley's suggestions
were treated with benign contempt by the rest of us." In
1961, Cook bought a strip joint in Soho and started The Establishment
Club featuring Lenny Bruce, Frankie Howerd and a young Australian called
Barry Humphries. In the cellar, Moore played jazz and The Dudley Moore
Trio was born. Music
was central to Moore's life. An exceptionally gifted pianist who could
sight-read and extemporise with remarkable ease, he had an amazing
ability to change from jazz to classical. Classical pianists praised his
performances of Bach fugues; the jazz fraternity dug his free-flowing,
lissom style. Moore
went on to form a double-act with Cook, enjoying popular success with
their stage shows and making movie appearances in The Wrong Box (1966)
and Bedazzled (1967). Dudley also composed the scores for several films
including 30 Is a Dangerous Age, Cynthia (1967), Inadmissible Evidence
(1968) and Staircase (1969).
In
a biography published in 1997 Moore emerged as a troubled soul who,
though he had seemingly succeeded at everything, remained deeply
unfulfilled. He
confessed to being driven by feelings of inferiority about his
working-class origins and because of his height of five feet,
two-and-a-half inches (156 centimetres). In later life he also spoke of
the pain of being rejected by his mother because he was born with a
deformed left foot. Comedians,
he said in an interview with Newsday in 1980, are often driven by such
feelings: "I certainly did feel inferior. Because of class. Because
of strength. Because of height. ... I guess if I'd been able to hit
somebody in the nose, I wouldn't have been a comic." His
brilliance as both jazz and classical pianist was constantly undermined
by his personal life. He married four times (each marriage lasted only a
couple of years) - in 1968 to Suzy Kendall, in 1975 to Tuesday Weld, in
1988 Brogan Lane and in 1994 Nicole Rothschild. In
1990 he achieved something of the recognition his musical talents
deserved when he co-starred on Channel 4's series about the orchestra
with Sir George Solti. He followed this in 1993 with his Concerto with
the conductor Michael Tilson Thomas. He
also made several concert tours playing piano duets with Rena Fruchter.
It was during one of these that she noticed Moore was playing somewhat
erratically; in May 1999 he was diagnosed with the rare degenerative
brain disease, progressive supranuclear palsy. Moore
always returned to music in times of stress. "I can't imagine not
having music in my life,
Riddled
with self-doubt and insecurities from an early age he was undoubtedly
anxious to be accepted as a musician; yet he often seemed vulnerable,
and rather lost. Whether in Beyond the Fringe, the movie business,
London, LA or New York, Moore never quite fitted. A colleague speaking
on the BBC's Omnibus arts show described him as: "the funniest and
the saddest man I ever knew." Moore
died on 27 March 2002, in New Jersey, aged 66. He is survived by sons
from his second and fourth marriages.
ALBUMS From Beyond The Fringe (Atlantic Standard 2 017, 1966) The Dudley Moore Trio (Decca Records (LK UK) / London Records (US) PS558) 1969 Dudley Moore plays The Theme From Beyond The Fringe and All That Jazz - Atlantic 1403 (1962) The World of Dudley Moore - Decca SPA 106 Genuine Dud - Decca LK 4788 The Music of Dudley Moore - EMI Australia (Cube Records)TOOFA.14-1/2 Dudley Down Under - Cube ICS 13 Dudley Moore at the Wavendon Festival - Black Lion Records BLP 12151 Smilin' Through - Cleo Laine & Dudley Moore - - Finesse Records FW 38091 Dudley Dell - Parlophone 45R 4772 Strictly For The Birds - Cleo Laine & Dudley Moore - CBS A 2947 The Theme From "Beyond The Fringe" & All That Jazz - Collectibles COL 6625 Live From an Aircraft Hanger - Martine Avenue Productions MAPI 8486 Songs Without Words - GRP/BMG LC 6713 The First Orchestrations - Dudley Moore & Richard Rodney Bennett - Played by John Bassett and his Band - Harkit Records HRKCD 8054 Jazz Jubilee - Martine Avenue Productions MAPI 1521 SINGLES "Goodbye-ee" (1965) Peter Cook and Dudley Moore "The L.S. Bumble Bee" (1967) Peter Cook and Dudley Moore "Song for Suzy" (1972) Dudley Moore Trio — upbeat jazz. |
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