Les DeMerle

Native New Yorker Les DeMerle built a long career as a jazz drummer while also establishing himself as a vocalist, one of the rare percussionists able to handle both roles at once. Unlike Grady Tate, who kept the two skills separate and hired Dennis Mackrel for all drumming on the 1991 Milestone/Fantasy vocal album TNT: Grady Tate Sings, DeMerle never set his kit aside when he chose to sing. His support for vocalists has been extensive; since 1986 he has spotlighted his wife, singer Bonnie Eisele, on no fewer than ten of his own releases through 2007. Over the decades he has also accompanied traditional-pop figures such as Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., Tony Bennett and Wayne Newton, as well as jazz singers Sarah Vaughan, Mel Tormé and Eddie Jefferson.

Born in Brooklyn on November 4, 1946, DeMerle grew up in a household where neither parent played an instrument yet both nurtured a deep appreciation for big bands and traditional pop. Drawn to drumming at age ten, he absorbed the styles of Buddy Rich, Gene Krupa, Chick Webb and Art Blakey; by fifteen he was sitting in with Lionel Hampton and Gene Krupa. As a young adult he fronted his own group, Sound 67, and at twenty-four, late in 1970, began a twelve-year tenure with Harry James that lasted until the trumpeter’s death from lymphatic cancer in 1983. Throughout the 1970s DeMerle played countless engagements with James while simultaneously directing the fusion outfit Transfusion, whose personnel at various times included tenor saxophonists Michael Brecker and Sam Riney, alto saxophonist Eric Marienthal, trumpeter Randy Brecker, electric-keyboard and acoustic-piano player David Benoit and Brazilian trombonist Raul De Souza.

Although DeMerle proved comfortable across swing, traditional pop, fusion and modal post-bop, his strongest allegiance remained hard bop, the foundation of the big-band and small-group work he led from the 1980s onward while consistently featuring Eisele. In the 2000s he recorded frequently for Seattle’s Origin label, issuing the live sets Cookin’ at the Corner, Volumes 1 and 2, the holiday collection The Jazz Spirit of Christmas and the Blue Note tributes Hittin’ the Blue Notes, Volumes 1 and 2.