BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS
Description: Drummer, Composer, UK
Known For: His experimentations were partly financed by composing film music for Catch Us If You Can (1965)
Instruments: Drums
Music Styles: Jazz
Location: United Kingdom
Date Born: 8th August 1927
Location Born: London, United Kingdom
Date Died: 18th June 2005
Location Died: Hessle Road, United Kingdom
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BIOGRAPHICAL PROFILE
Basil Kirchin
Basil Kirchin (8 August 1927 – 18 June 2005) was an English drummer and composer. His career spanned from playing drums in his father’s big band at the age of 13, through scoring films, to electronic music featuring tape manipulation of the sounds of birds, animals, insects and autistic children”.
A British drummer and composer. His career stretched from playing drums in his father’s big band at the age of 13, through scoring films, to experimenting with the manipulation of recorded sounds which has seen him cited as “the father of ambient music.”
After the war, Kirchin played with Harry Roy and Ted Heath but returned to work with his father in the Kirchin Band in 1951.
The band continued to enjoy success, with Billy Eckstein and Sarah Vaughan insisting that the Kirchin Band backed them when they toured Britain.
Their shows would break attendance records and were featured in Melody Maker polls.
The band recorded for Decca and Parlophone, their output for the latter being produced by George Martin.
He moved to Sydney but as his possessions were being unloaded from the ship a strap broke and everything, including his recordings of the Kirchin band, was lost beneath the sea. This loss would trouble him for the rest of his life.
In 1961, he returned to Britain and worked with Keith Herd on experimental pieces, “soundtracks for unmade films”. He also produced material for the De Wolfe library using the talents of young session musicians like Jimmy Page and Mick Ronson.
His experimentations were partly financed by composing film music for Catch Us If You Can (1965), The Shuttered Room (1967), I Start Counting (1969) with Jenny Agutter and The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971).
His early fame and eventful life not known in the ex-Fishing Community of Hessle Road where he lived until his death in June 2005.