Artist: Billy Higgins

Billy Higgins was an American jazz drummer. He played mainly free jazz and hard bop. 

Higgins was born in Los Angeles, California, United States. Higgins played on Ornette Coleman's first records, beginning in 1958. 

He then freelanced extensively with hard bop and other post-bop players, including Donald Byrd, Dexter Gordon, Grant Green, Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson, Don Cherry, Paul Horn, Milt Jackson, Jackie McLean, Pat Metheny, Hank Mobley, Thelonious Monk, Lee Morgan, David Murray, Art Pepper, Sonny Rollins, Mal Waldron, and Cedar Walton. 

He was one of the house drummers for Blue Note Records, and played on dozens of Blue Note albums of the 1960s. He also collaborated with composer La Monte Young and guitarist Sandy Bull. 

In his career, he played on over 700 recordings, including recordings of rock and funk. He appeared as a jazz drummer in the 2001 movie, Southlander. 

In 1989, Higgins cofounded a cultural center, The World Stage, in Los Angeles to encourage and promote younger jazz musicians. The center provides workshops in performance and writing, as well as concerts and recordings. Higgins also taught in the jazz studies program at the University of California, Los Angeles. 

Further information about Billy Higgins is found here.

Photography credit: Brianmcmillen, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

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