Dave Pike born 23 March 1938

Dave Pike (23 March 1938 - 3 October 2015) was born in Detroit, Wayne, Michigan. He learned drums at the age of eight and was self-taught on vibes. He moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1954 and played with Curtis Counce, Harold Land, Elmo Hope, Dexter Gordon, Carl Perkins, and Paul Bley, among others. In 1956, at the age of 18, he released his first recording, "Gene Norman presents the Jazz Couriers."

After moving to New York in 1960 he put an amplifier on his vibes when working with flautist Herbie Mann with whom he toured with during 1961-1964.  In 1961 he released his debut album “It’s Time For Dave Pike” for Riverside records which contained swinging, inspired bop along the lines of Milt Jackson, who was one of Pike's primary influences. Other albums followed on the Epic, New Jazz, Moodsville, Decca, Atlantic, Vortex and Relax labels.

                  Here's "Melvalita" from above 1962 album.

                             

By the late 1960s, Pike's music became more exploratory, contributing a unique voice and new contexts that pushed the envelope in times remembered for their exploratory nature. Doors of Perception, released in 1970 for the Atlantic Records subsidiary Vortex Records and produced by former boss Herbie Mann,

explored ballads, modal territory, musique concrète, with free and lyrical improvisation, and included musicians like alto saxophonist Lee Konitz, bassist Chuck Israels and pianist Don Friedman.

Pike moved to Europe and signed with MPS Records and worked in Belgium, Germany and The Netherlands where he lived in Loosdrecht. With the collaboration of Volker Kriegel (guitar), J. A. Rettenbacher (acoustic and electric bass), and Peter Baumeister (drums), he formed the Dave Pike Set. The group recorded six records from 1969-1972 that ran the gamut from funky grooves to free, textural territory.

The group, though short-lived, created a unique identity and textural palette. Kriegel's compositional and instrumental (playing acoustic, classical, and electric guitar as well as sitar) contributions to the group helped set the Dave Pike Set's sound apart, organically incorporating influences from jazz, soul jazz, psychedelia, avant-garde music, and World music.

He returned to the United States in the early 1970s and talked the owner of Hungry Joe’s, a tiny Huntington Beach hangout in California for bikers and surfers, to let him play there. With pianist Tom Ranier, guitarist Ron Eschete and bassist Luther Hughes, Pike and his group became regulars and turned the establishment into a lively jazz club. He recorded for the Timeless and Criss Cross labels.

He died 3 October 2015 in Del Mar, California. He was 77. A smoker since his teens, Pike had emphysema. He made more than two dozen recordings during his career, including “Times Out of Mind,” “Carnaval” and “Jazz for the Jet Set.” He stopped touring in 2010 when his illness worsened, his wife said. Besides his wife, Brooke, whom he married in 2004, he is survived by a son from a previous marriage, Jesse, and three grandchildren.

Because the meat of his career was spent recording for a European label at a time when jazz music was losing steam in mainstream America, he has been among the countless musicians to have taken his place amongst the more obscure and only recently sought after jazz musicians of the mid-Twentieth Century.

Footnote: Dutch pianist Rein de Graaff regularly played with Dave Pike, who was discussed during an interview with Flophouse Magazine a couple of years ago. As far as De Graaff is concerned, It’s Time For Dave Pike was nothing short of “Charlie Parker on vibes!”. Bop master De Graaff, who semi-retired recently, pointed towards a vibraphone that stood beside the baby grand in his music room and said, “that’s the vibraphone Pike played on It’s Time. He gave it to me as a gift.” His friend had passed away six months before the interview.

(Edited from Wikipedia, AllMusic, Last FM, LA Times & Flophouse)