Michael Clement Irving Gibbs (born September 25, 1937, in Salisbury

Harare

Harare before 1982 known as Salisbury) is the largest city and capital of Zimbabwe. It has an estimated population of 1,600,000, with 2,800,000 in its metropolitan area . Administratively, Harare is an independent city equivalent to a province. It is Zimbabwe's largest city and its...

, Southern Rhodesia

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...

) is a jazz composer, conductor, arranger and producer as well as a trombonist and keyboardist.
He is known for collaborations with Gary Burton

Gary Burton

Gary Burton is an American jazz vibraphonist.A true original on the vibraphone, Burton developed a pianistic style of four-mallet technique as an alternative to the usual two-mallets. This approach caused Burton to be heralded as an innovator and his sound and technique are widely imitated...

, his student, and for his use of rock elements in orchestral jazz

Orchestral jazz

Orchestral jazz is a jazz genre developed in the United States in the 1920s, most significantly by Fletcher Henderson and Duke Ellington.As early as the 1910s there had been dance orchestras playing the popular songs of the day along with a smattering of jazz...

.

Career

He studied piano from age seven to thirteen and took up trombone at seventeen. In 1959 he moved to Boston to study at the Berklee College of Music

Berklee College of Music

Berklee College of Music, located in Boston, Massachusetts, is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known primarily as a school for jazz, rock and popular music, it also offers college-level courses in a wide range of contemporary and historic styles, including hip...

 and the Boston Conservatory

Boston Conservatory

The Boston Conservatory is a performing arts conservatory located in the Fenway-Kenmore region of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It grants undergraduate and graduate degrees in music, dance and musical theater...

. At Berklee he studied under and worked with Herb Pomeroy

Herb Pomeroy

Irving Herbert "Herb" Pomeroy, III was an influential swing and bebop jazz trumpeter and educator...

. He graduated from Berklee in 1962 and the conservatory in 1963. In 1965 he returned to what was then Southern Rhodesia, but later was associated with the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

.

After recording with Graham Collier

Graham Collier

James Graham Collier OBE was an English jazz bassist, bandleader and composer.-Life and career:Born in Tynemouth, Northumberland, on leaving school Collier joined the British Army as a musician, spending three years in Hong Kong...

, John Dankworth

John Dankworth

Sir John Phillip William Dankworth, CBE , known in his early career as Johnny Dankworth, was an English jazz composer, saxophonist and clarinetist...

, Kenny Wheeler

Kenny Wheeler

Kenneth Vincent John Wheeler, OC is a Canadian composer and trumpet and flugelhorn player, based in the U.K. since the 1950s....

 and Mike Westbrook

Mike Westbrook

Michael John David 'Mike' Westbrook is an English jazz pianist, composer, and writer of orchestrated jazz pieces.-Early work:Mike Westbrook grew up in Torquay...

 in the late 1960s, he released his first album Michael Gibbs in 1970.

From 1969 to 1974 Gibbs was musical director for the BBC TV comedy programme The Goodies

The Goodies

The Goodies are a trio of British comedians who created, wrote, and starred in a surreal British television comedy series called The Goodies during the 1970s and early 1980s combining sketches and situation comedy.-Honours:All three Goodies now have OBEs...

. When he left the UK to take up a teaching position at Berklee, the musical director post was filled by Dave MacRae

Dave MacRae

David Scott MacRae is a keyboardist from New Zealand, noted for his contributions in jazz and the Canterbury scene....

, a member of the band Gibbs had led in recording funk-rock music for the show.

Gibbs' orchestras were important stages in the careers of various fusion

Jazz fusion

Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...

 musicians, and his arranging, conducting and producing work was well appreciated (see
discography).

Albums as leader/co-leader

• Michael Gibbs (1970, Deram)
• Tanglewood 63 (1971, Deram)
• Just Ahead (1972, Polydor)
• In The Public Interest (1974, Polydor)
• Seven Songs For Quartet And Chamber Orchestra (1974, ECM)
• The Only Chrome Waterfall Orchestra (1975, Bronze)
• Big Music (1988, Venture/Virgin)
• By The Way (1993, ah um)
• Europeana (1995, ACT)
• Nonsequence (2001, Provocateur)

Soundtracks

• Madame Sin
  Madame Sin
  Madame Sin is a 1972 British thriller film directed by David Greene and starring Bette Davis, Robert Wagner, Denholm Elliot and Gordon Jackson. The screenplay was written by Greene and Barry Oringer.-Plot summary:...
  
  (1972)
• Housekeeping (1987, Varèse Sarabande/MCA)
• Iron & Silk (1991, The Fine Line/Mute)
• Hard-Boiled (1993, The Fine Line/Mute)
• Being Human (1993, Varèse Sarabande/MCA)
• Century/Close My Eyes (1994, The Fine Line/Mute)

External links

• Mike Gibbs Official Site for Compositions and Arrangements
• Discography
• [ All music]
• BBC Radio 2
• Goodies Podcast - audio interview with Mike Gibbs recorded 6th March 2010.