Koffman, Moe, 1928-2001 : Morris Jacob (Moe) Koffman was born in Toronto on 28 December 1928, the son of Jewish immigrants from Poland. His father worked in a shoe factory before the family opened a variety store. Koffman began his musical studies on violin at the age of nine, including studies at the Hambourg Conservatory of Music. At age 13 Koffman switched to alto saxophone, with studies at the Toronto Conservatory of Music (where his teachers included Herbert Pye, clarinet, and Samuel Dolin, theory), and later in the 1940s he studied with Gordon Delamont. Koffman left school in his mid teens to pursue a career in music, playing in dance bands such as those of Horace Lapp and Leo Romanelli. Koffman was among the first Canadian jazz artists to adopt the new bebop idiom in the late 1940s, and his playing soon began to attract attention. In 1948 he was recognized as best alto saxophonist in a CBC Jazz Unlimited poll and was featured in an article in Metronome magazine. Also in 1948, Koffman made his first commercial recordings, which were in the bebop style, for the Main Stem company in nearby Buffalo, USA, accompanied by an American rhythm section.
In 1950 Koffman moved to New York City, where he found work in the reed sections of several notable big bands, including those led by Sonny Dunham, Jimmy Dorsey, Tex Beneke, Buddy Morrow, and Ralph Flanagan, and during 1950-1955 he was often on tour with these organizations. While based in New York, Koffman also studied flute with Harold Bennett (of the Metropolitan Opera orchestra) and clarinet with Leon Russianoff (New York Philharmonic).
Koffman returned to Toronto in 1955 and was based there for almost his entire remaining career. In Toronto he pursued parallel careers as both a live performing and recording artist, and also as a prolific studio musician working on television, film, advertising jingles, and other commercial music. The repertoire of instruments on which he was proficient grew to include several members of the saxophone, flute, and clarinet families. Performing at local jazz venues such as the House of Hambourg, Koffman soon formed his longstanding quartet (which later expanded into a quintet), and became a prominent figure in the Toronto and Canadian jazz scenes. The Moe Koffman Quartet/Quintet performed regularly in Toronto and undertook frequent national and some international tours (including to the USA, Australia, South America, and Europe) well into the 1990s. While many musicians were members of the group over the years, the one with by far the greatest continuity was the guitarist Ed Bickert. Other notable members included: the multi-instrumentalist Don Thompson; Lenny Breau (guitar); Terry Clarke, Claude Ranger, and Barry Elmes (drums); Neil Swainson and Kieran Overs (bass); and Bernie Senensky (piano). In the 1960s, Koffman sometimes performed simultaneously on two saxophones (tenor and alto), and also experimented with electronic modifications to his instruments and with the addition of other sounds to his groups, such as sitar and tambura. During 1982-1992, Koffman's quintet was often joined on tour by the American jazz trumpeter and bebop pioneer Dizzy Gillespie. During 1972-2000 Koffman was the lead alto saxophonist and a featured soloist in Rob McConnell's big band, the Boss Brass. In addition to his career as a live performer, Koffman also served as the booking agent for the Toronto jazz club, George's Spaghetti House (later know as George's Jazz Room), where he usually also performed with his own group for one week each month. As booking agent for George's from 1956 until the club's closure in 1994, Koffman exercised considerable influence over the Toronto jazz scene for a period of almost four decades.
In addition to live performance, Koffman recorded extensively and has left a diverse discography. In February 1957 Koffman recorded an album of jazz music, including his new composition Swingin' Shepherd Blues, which he performed on flute. Koffman's recording of Swingin' Shepherd Blues soon received radio airplay in Chicago, USA, and was then covered in a recording by a local musician, Johnny Pate, whose version imitated almost exactly Koffman's own recorded performance. The popularity of the Pate cover prompted Koffman's record company to re-release his version as a pop single, and Swingin' Shepherd Blues became a major international hit in 1958. It has since been covered by numerous artists (among them Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, and Oscar Peterson), and it remains among the most popular compositions and recordings in the jazz repertoire. Swingin' Shepherd Blues and other flute performances by Koffman contributed significantly to, and were evidence of, the changing role of the flute in jazz in the 1950s, a decade which saw that instrument evolve from novelty status and into the jazz woodwinds mainstream. Koffman built on the success of Swingin' Shepherd Blues by using it as his signature tune and by naming the company through which he undertook most of his business affairs Swinging Shepherd Enterprises.
While Koffman continued to record straight-ahead jazz throughout his career, including one collaboration with Dizzy Gillespie (Oop-Pop-A-Da, 1988), he was also noted for his crossover recordings of jazz interpretations of classical music. The first of these was Moe Koffman Plays Bach (1971), which was followed by recordings of works by Vivaldi, Mozart, Grieg, Debussy, Bartok, and other classical composers. Beginning in the 1970s, Koffman's concert engagements with symphony orchestras often included selections from his classical repertoire. Some Koffman recording projects sought to combine instrumental jazz with popular idioms such as rock, folk, and easy-listening, while other innovative jazz albums were centred around broader themes, such as Solar Explorations (with compositions for the various planets, 1974) and Museum Pieces (inspired and co-produced by the Royal Ontario Museum, 1977). Koffman's recording projects usually contained a combination of his own compositions and arrangements and those prepared by (or in collaboration with) others, such as his frequent associate Doug Riley. While Koffman was moderately prolific as a composer and arranger, his activities in this area received less emphasis than other aspects of his career; he tended to compose or to arrange only when material was needed for a specific project, such as a recording session. In addition to recordings of classical music, Koffman was sometimes engaged as a soloist for concert performances of modern orchestral and chamber works by such composers as John Weinzweig, Paul Hoffert, and Doug Riley. He also toured and recorded with the Orford String Quartet.
In addition to extensive studio broadcast work, Koffman appeared with some regularity in radio and television broadcasts in Canada and sometimes the USA, often as a featured artist. In addition to extensive work for the CBC (including the widely heard themes and cues used on the radio programme As It Happens), Koffman led the big band for Global television's talk and variety show Everything Goes during 1973-1974. Television appearances in the USA included The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and an episode of Hugh Hefner's Playboy After Dark.
Koffman's career took on a new dimension in 1989 when he became orchestra contractor for the production of Phantom of the Opera mounted in Toronto by Garth Drabinsky's Live Entertainment Corporation of Canada (commonly known as Livent). Koffman served as orchestra contractor for numerous Livent musical theatre productions, both in Toronto and touring companies, and continued in this role until the collapse of the corporation during 1998-1999.
Koffman was the recipient of numerous music industry and civic honours and awards. Among these are PRO Canada's William Harold Moon Award (1981), the Toronto Arts Award (1991), Officer of the Order of Canada (1994), the SOCAN Jazz Award (1996), induction into the JUNO Awards Canadian Music Hall of Fame (1997), and the Oscar Peterson Award from the Festival international de jazz de Montréal (posthumous, 2001). Among his hobbies was photography, which included the photographing of other jazz musicians in performance. His son Herb Koffman is a jazz trumpeter and was a member of the group Manteca in the 1980s. Moe Koffman died in Orangeville, Ontario, on 28 March 2001.
