Jazzy Bagpipes

You don't typically think of bagpipes as jazz instruments. But the beauty of musical instruments is that they are hardly ever what you think and sometimes the best music comes from turning traditional sounds right on their head. I dearly love the sound of the Red Hot Chilli Pipersand as part of my piping journey I am exploring how bagpipes are used in all types of music.

Here's a little bit of what I found on the intersection of bagpipes and jazz.

Pied Piper of Jazz
Rufus Harley, Philadelphia jazz musician. Self proclaimed only bagpipe jazz musician. He put out a couple of albums back in the 1960's including the appropriately named Scotch and Soul. A fun fact is that he once gave Muhammed Ali bagpipe lessons.
Here's a link to a nice video biography on him (the embedding link is disabled):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83NdHG_96r

Gunhild Carling
This Swedish jazz musician plays a bunch of different instruments. In fact, she's known for playing three trumpets at the same time! I found this awesome video of her. She does a bit of talking and I have no idea what she's saying but her playing is awesome!


She is not playing the Great Highland Bagpipes, it's either border pipes or small pipes. I'd like to invest in a set of border or small pipes at some point in time so it's neat to see what people can do with them.

Pipe on jazz musicians!