Malcolm Cecil

Malcolm Cecil

Malcolm Cecil (born 9 January 1937, London) is a British jazz bassist and Grammy Award-winning record producer.

A founding member of the UK's leading jazz quintet of the late 1950s, The Jazz Couriers,[1] he went on to join a number of British jazz combos led by Dick Morrissey, Tony Crombie and Ronnie Scott in the late 50s and early 60s.[2] He later joined Cyril Davies and Alexis Korner to form the original line-up of Blues Incorporated.

He later joined Robert Margouleff to form the duo TONTO's Expanding Head Band, a project based around a unique combination of synthesizers which led to them collaborating on and co-producing several of Stevie Wonder's Grammy-winning albums of the early 70s.

Contents

TONTO's Expanding Head Band

With Robert Margouleff, he formed the duo TONTO's Expanding Head Band, a project based around synthesizers. The duo were closely associated with Stevie Wonder's multiple Grammy Award winning Talking Book (1972), sharing the Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical award as well as collaborating on and co-producing classic Wonder albums such as Music of My Mind, Innervisions and Fulfillingness' First Finale.

Cecil is credited, with Margouleff, as engineer for the Stevie Wonder produced album Perfect Angel (1974), by Minnie Riperton.

Their unique sound made them highly-sought after and they went on to collaborate with, amongst others, Quincy Jones, Bobby Womack, The Isley Brothers, Billy Preston, Gil Scott-Heron and Weather Report, Stephen Stills, The Doobie Brothers, Dave Mason, Little Feat, Joan Baez and Steve Hillage.

Discography

(see also Robert Margouleff Discography Margouleff and Cecil (together) Discography)

Solo

  • 1981 Radiance

with The Dick Morrissey Quartet

with The Tony Crombie Orchestra

  • 1961: The Tony Crombie Orchestra

with Emcee Five

  • 1961: Let's Take Five
  • 1962: Bebop from the East Coast

with Jim Hall

  • 1971: ...Where Would I Be?

with TONTO's Expanding Headband

  • 1971: Zero Time
  • 1972: It's About Time

with Stevie Wonder

with the Isley Bros

with Steve Hillage

with Bill Augustine

  • 1996: A Jazzy Christmas
  • 2009: A Jazzy Christmas 2

With Gil Scott-Heron

  • 1978: Secrets (with Brian Jackson)
  • 1980: Real Eyes
  • 1981: Reflections
  • 1982: Moving Target
  • Shut 'Um Down; Angel Dust (singles)
  • 1994: Spirits
  • 2011: We're New Here (with Jamie xx)

Other Acts (Production, programming, engineering)

[3]

  • Dave Mason - It's Like You Never Left (1973)
  • Mandrill - Beast From The East (1975)
  • Blood Donor - Rubber Revolution (1979 Taken from the Album 'Blood Donor')
  • Savoy Brown - Kings Of Boogie (1989 Engineer [Recording])
  • Mark Josephson - Dreamstate (1990)

References