Maury Kaye

Kaye, Maury

Maury (Morris David) Kaye (b Kronick). Pianist, composer, b Montreal 29 Mar 1932, d there 3 Feb 1983. He studied piano 1945-9 at the CMM, where Arthur Letondal was his teacher. While the bandleader 1952-9 at the El Morocco, Kaye played jazz with his own groups (eg, at Dunn's) and as a valve trombonist or trumpeter in the bands of Steve Garrick, Gilbert 'Buck' Lacombe, etc. His subsequent career, the transient nature of which was the result of his addiction to heroin, was divided between Montreal and Toronto; he also travelled twice during the 1960s to Europe.

In Toronto, Kaye appeared 1960-1 at the House of Hambourg in the Jack Gelber play The Connection, worked with Ron Collier, played in studio orchestras and at O'Keefe Centre, and accompanied US jazz musicians ca 1968 at the club Bourbon Street. In Montreal, he led groups 1961-3 in a succession of clubs, including The Penthouse, and worked intermittently in the late 1970s with the trumpeter Charles Ellison, the singer Barbara Reney, and others. A fiery bebop pianist, Kaye recorded commercially with the US trumpeter Ted Curson on Trumpet on the Way Up (1962, Trans-World TWJ-7000), a live LP from Montreal's Tête de l'Art; he also made CBC broadcast recordings as a trumpeter with Lacombe and as a pianist and french hornist with Collier.