Bruce Ditmas is an American jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 drummer and percussionist.

Ditmas was born in Atlantic City but grew up in Miami; his father was a trumpeter in Miami big band

Big band

A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...

s. He studied with Tony Crisetello and then with Stan Kenton

Stan Kenton

Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator....

 at Indiana University

Indiana University

Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...

 and Michigan State University

Michigan State University

Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...

 in the early 1960s. After a stint with Ira Sullivan

Ira Sullivan

Ira Sullivan is a bop jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist, flautist, saxophonist and composer born in Washington, D.C.. An active musician since the 1950s, he may be best known for his extensive work with Red Rodney and Lin Halliday among others....

 (1962-64), he accompanied singers including Judy Garland

Judy Garland

Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...

, Barbra Streisand

Barbra Streisand

Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...

, Della Reese

Della Reese

Delloreese Patricia Early, known professionally as Della Reese , is an American actress, singer, game show panelist of the 1970s, one-time talk-show hostess and ordained minister. She started her career in the 1950s as a gospel, pop and jazz singer, scoring a hit with her 1959 single "Don't You...

, Leslie Uggams

Leslie Uggams

Leslie Uggams is an American actress and singer, perhaps best known for her work in Hallelujah, Baby! She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.-Singing:...

, and Sheila Jordan

Sheila Jordan

Sheila Jordan is an American jazz singer and songwriter. Jordan has recorded as a session musician with an array of critically acclaimed artists in addition to a notable solo career....

 between 1964 and 1970. He moved to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 in 1966.

In the 1970s Ditmas played with Joe Newman

Joe Newman (trumpeter)

Joseph Dwight Newman was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and educator, best known for his time with Count Basie....

 (1971), Jazz Interactions Orchestra (1971), Gil Evans

Gil Evans

Gil Evans was a jazz pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader, active in the United States...

 (1971-77), Enrico Rava

Enrico Rava

Enrico Rava , is a prolific jazz trumpeter and arguably one of the best known Italian jazz musicians. He originally played trombone, changing to the trumpet after hearing Miles Davis. His first commercial work was as a member of Gato Barbieri's Italian quintet in the mid-1960s; in the late 1960s...

 (from 1971), Star Drive, Atmospheres

Atmosphères

Atmosphères is a piece for full orchestra, composed by György Ligeti in 1961. It is noted for eschewing conventional melody and metre in favor of dense sound textures...

, Future Shock

Future Shock

Future Shock is a book written by the futurist Alvin Toffler in 1970. In the book, Toffler defines the term "future shock" as a certain psychological state of individuals and entire societies. His shortest definition for the term is a personal perception of "too much change in too short a period of...

 (1972), New Wilderness Preservation Band (1972-73), Paul Bley

Paul Bley

Paul Bley, CM is a pianist known for his contributions to the free jazz movement of the 1960s as well as his innovations and influence on trio playing.-Biography:...

, Lee Konitz

Lee Konitz

Lee Konitz is an American jazz composer and alto saxophonist born in Chicago, Illinois.Generally considered one of the driving forces of Cool Jazz, Konitz has also performed successfully in bebop and avant-garde settings...

, Pat Metheny

Pat Metheny

Patrick Bruce "Pat" Metheny is an American jazz guitarist and composer.One of the most successful and critically acclaimed jazz musicians to come to prominence in the 1970s and '80s, he is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is also involved in duets, solo works and other side projects...

, Chet Baker

Chet Baker

Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker, Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and singer.Though his music earned him a large following , Baker's popularity was due in part to his "matinee idol-beauty" and "well-publicized drug habit."He died in 1988 in Amsterdam, the...

 (1974-75), and Stan Getz

Stan Getz

Stanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...

 (1975). Later in the 1970s he concentrated on solo performance, including experiments with drum machine

Drum machine

A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums or other percussion instruments. They are used in a variety of musical genres, not just purely electronic music...

s. He returned to work with the Evans Orchestra from 1979 to 1985, and lived in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 in 1986-87, where he played with Dino Saluzzi

Dino Saluzzi

Timoteo "Dino" Saluzzi is an Argentine musician.The son of popular carpero composer and instrumentalist Cayetano Saluzzi, Dino played the bandoneón since his childhood...

, Rava, Rita Marcotulli, and Pietro Tonolo. He played with his own trio D3 with Jack DeSalvo and Tony DeCicco from 1988. D3 released Spontaneous Combustion on the Tutu label. In the 1990s he played with Pat Hall and Karl Berger

Karl Berger

Karl Hanns Berger is a musicologist with a PhD in Music Sociology, jazz composer, jazz vibraphone and piano player.-Biography:...

 among others. D3 reformed in 2008 and is currently performing as the D3 Standards Trio.

In 1990, Ditmas orchestrated the music to an opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 by Patricia Burgess, The Dream of Four Directions. He also composed prolifically for film and television; among his credits is the film Deathscape.

Discography

With Gil Evans

Gil Evans

Gil Evans was a jazz pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader, active in the United States...

• Where Flamingos Fly
  Where Flamingos Fly
  Where Flamingos Fly is an album by jazz composer, arranger, conductor and pianist Gil Evans, recorded in 1971, but not released until 1981, and performed by Evans with a orchestra featuring Billy Harper, Howard Johnson, Johnny Coles, and Don Preston....
  
  (Artists House, 1971)

With Enrico Rava

Enrico Rava

Enrico Rava , is a prolific jazz trumpeter and arguably one of the best known Italian jazz musicians. He originally played trombone, changing to the trumpet after hearing Miles Davis. His first commercial work was as a member of Gato Barbieri's Italian quintet in the mid-1960s; in the late 1960s...

• Volver
  Volver (album)
  Volver is an album by the Enrico Rava/Dino Saluzzi Quinter recorded in 1987 and released on the ECM label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow awarded the album 3 stars stating "Rava's introverted yet inwardly passionate playing matches well with Saluzzi's modern tangos, and the results...
  
  (ECM, 1986)