Malcolm Cecil

Malcolm Cecil (born 9 January 1937) is a British jazz bassist and Grammy Award-winning record producer.

Malcolm Cecil in 2015
(Moog Music booth, NAMM Show 2015)

Born in London, Cecil was a founding member of the UK's leading jazz quintet of the late 1950s, The Jazz Couriers,[1] before going on to join a number of British jazz combos led by Dick Morrissey, Tony Crombie and Ronnie Scott in the late 1950s and early 1960s.[2] He later joined Cyril Davies and Alexis Korner to form the original line-up of Blues Incorporated.

He later joined Robert Margouleff to form the duo TONTO's Expanding Head Band, a project based on a unique combination of synthesizers which led to them collaborating on and co-producing several of Stevie Wonder's Grammy-winning albums of the early 1970s.[3]

TONTO's Expanding Head Band

With Robert Margouleff, he formed the duo TONTO's Expanding Head Band, a synthesizer-based project. The duo were closely associated with Stevie Wonder's multiple Grammy Award winning Talking Book (1972), sharing the Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical award as well as collaborating on and co-producing classic Wonder albums such as Music of My Mind, Innervisions and Fulfillingness' First Finale.[4][5]

Cecil is credited, with Margouleff, as engineer for the Stevie Wonder produced album Perfect Angel (1974), by Minnie Riperton.

Their unique sound made them highly sought-after and they went on to collaborate with, amongst others, Quincy Jones, Bobby Womack, The Isley Brothers, Billy Preston, Gil Scott-Heron, Weather Report, Stephen Stills, The Doobie Brothers, Dave Mason, Little Feat, Joan Baez and Steve Hillage.

The vocalist Gil Scott-Heron, who wrote that he considered Cecil a creative genius,[6] along with keyboardist Brian Jackson enlisted Cecil and his T.O.N.T.O. synthesizer for the production of their collaborative album, 1980 (1980). Scott-Heron and Jackson were featured on the album cover with the synthesizer.[7]

Discography

(see also Robert Margouleff Discography Margouleff and Cecil (together) Discography)

As leader/co-leader

Solo
  • 1981 Radiance

With TONTO's Expanding Headband
  • 1971: Zero Time
  • 1972: It's About Time
  • 1996: TONTO Rides Again (compilation of above)
As sideman

Production, etc.

As producer, programmer, and/or engineer:[8]

With Stevie Wonder

Various
  • Dave Mason – It's Like You Never Left (1973)
  • Mandrill – Beast From The East (1975)
  • Billy Preston – It's My Pleasure (1975)
  • Billy Preston – Billy Preston (1976)
  • Blood Donor – Rubber Revolution (1979 – from the album Blood Donor)
  • Savoy Brown – Kings of Boogie (1989 – recording engineer)
  • Mark Josephson – Dreamstate (1990)
  • Neil Norman - Greatest Science Fiction Hits lV (1998)
  • Pete Bardens – Watercolours (2002)

References
  1. The Jazz Couriers at David Taylor's British jazz web site Archived 8 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine
  2. Ronnie Scott at David Taylor's British jazz web site Archived 26 September 2013 at the Wayback Machine
  3. Holmes, Thom (2015). Electronic and Experimental Music: Technology, Music, and Culture. Routledge. ISBN 9781317410232.
  4. Betts, Graham (2014). Motown Encyclopedia. AC Publishing. ISBN 9781311441546.
  5. The Mojo Collection: 4th Edition. Canongate Books. 2007. ISBN 9781847676436.
  6. Scott-Heron, Gil (2011). Now and Then. Canongate Books. ISBN 9781847677440.
  7. Suskind, Alex (11 June 2013). "Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson". Wax Poetics. Retrieved 22 December 2018.
  8. "Malcolm Cecil – Discogs". discogs. Retrieved 27 November 2014.

Malcolm Cecil discography at Discogs

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