[Dixielandjazz] Dick Broadie bio - sorry not short!

[Richard Broadie]

Have this bio in my data base.  It's long, but on the other hand it's boreing.  I'm sorry but am still quite weak and not up to editing this to shorten for you.  I want to thank all of you for your prayers during my recent hospitalizations.  They seem to be working quite well!   Dick

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More than you could have possibly have wanted to know about Dick Broadie  Sept 8, 2002

  Richard "Dick" Broadie. a native of Waverly, Iowa, has been a professional musician since he was 18 and illegally playing in one of Chicago's hottest night clubs. (Another story!) In 1958, after graduating from DeVry Technical Institute's resident electronics program, Dick moved to California.

  Dick has known and shared his talent on reeds, piano or bass with numerous musicians and performers including Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington, Hoagy Carmichael, Teddy Wilson, "Peanuts" Hucko, Henry Cuesta, Bobby Hackett, Danny Thomas, Wild Bill Davidson, Martha Tilton and Charlie Beal. He has performed for many luminaries including Bob and Dolores Hope, Gene Autry, Ruby Keeler, Buddy Epson, George Murphy, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Leo Durocher, Jimmy Van Heusen, Ginger Rogers, Rosalie Hearst and Gerald Ford. In Palm Springs, Dick has performed and frequently lead bands at private clubs (The Racquet & Tennis Clubs), private homes, country clubs and many famous nightspots including the original Chi Chi, the El Mirador Hotel and the Trinidad Hotel lounge (Sinatra's "home base" at the time.) As a published composer, Dick is a member of ASCAP.

  Before moving to the desert, Dick attained a BA in Psychology from Cal State University, Los Angeles and then worked for two years at the Watts Service Center on 103rd St. in L.A. where he started not long after the Watts riots. Next, he attended gradate school at UCLA in Public Administration, and was shortly thereafter employed as a research scientist at Enki Research Institute in Chatsworth, assisting in designing and applying the means to evaluate California's mental health system and laws. After a brief stay in Sacramento as a consultant to the legal counsel of the California State Legislature, Dick returned to LA where he helped to evaluate the new mental health laws under National Institute of Mental Health funding. Of course, during this time, he never stopped playing music.

  When Dick and his family moved to Palm Springs in 1971, he initially worked full-time as a musician.  During these early years in the desert, Dick founded the Palm Springs Jazz Association which was the precursor of the Dixieland Jazz Society of the Desert. Since then, Dick served many years as leader of that organization's Dixieland One-Eleven Jazz Band.  He currently still participates as a member of the Jazz Society's board of directors.

In 1977, as country music became popular to the exclusion of jazz, Dick briefly joined a band at Gene Autry's Red Cantina Lounge (where Mr. Autry personally sponsored him for membership into the Academy of County Music based on Dick's [according to him] worst composition "Recycled Love").  Dick decided the 10 gallon hat and the boots didn't fit well. Being too educated to find suitable work,  Dick returned to school at College of the Desert where he earned his RN degree. Over the next 10 years, he became shift supervisor on the psychiatric unit at Desert Hospital and later, the house supervisor at Canyon Springs (Psychiatric) Hospital. During this time, Dick continued to play music and, as a hobby using his electronics background, he developed an exceptionally good system for converting monaural sound into stereophonic sound.

 In 1990, Dick demonstrated his unique new technologies before professional audio audiences in Los Angeles where he received instant acclaim. Before long, he had patents (US and foreign) and soon thereafter founded Broadie Sound, Inc. Since then, Dick has made mono to stereo engineering contributions to many projects including the award winning Ultra-Lounge CD series for Capitol Records in Hollywood as well as numerous classical and jazz CDs for Avid Records in London. He has been a consultant in pro audio on the lots of MGM and Paramount Pictures.   Dick  was awarded the Southern California Motion Pictures Bronze Halo Award in 1993 for technical as well as musical achievement. Until fairly recently, Dick has been very active in the Audio Engineering Society, Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, the Sapphire club and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

 Dick is now close to retirement from the audio field but is still quite busy, participating In a multitude of volunteer activities ranging from a church's food bank and youth choir to serving on a committee at the institute of Critical Care Medicine. He still plays music for money but also performs for the Stroke Activities Center, several nursing homes and occasionally, the local American Legion Post where he is a member. In 2000 he received the his 6 year volunteer certificate from the Mizell Senior Center where he currently plays for lunches on Monday, hosts a jam session on Wednesday and plays with a big band on Friday. In 2001,he also received the Senior Center's "Father of the Year" award which brings us to what he would call his greatest achievement. Dick, with immeasurable assistance by Sharon, his wonderful wife of 33 years, has successfully raised three sons all of whom are currently in college.  In 2002, Dick presented local area prescription medication concerns to Gov. Davis of California.  

 As for the future, in addition to volunteer work, Dick plans to continue composing and performing music. Perhaps he'll someday write a book about spending many hours in his mentor's home, listening to Armstrong and Ellington recordings as Barney Bigard detailed his participation in those seminal jazz sessions.  And meeting Louis Armstrong at a deceased musician's rosary and spending then next six hours at the his side, getting a privileged exposure to the history of jazz by its principal author.  Perhaps, in that book, he'll even try to remember exactly what it was that Phil Harris and Hoagy Carmichael told him about Bix on that distant night, so long ago, when Dick was far too drunk to remember much of anything. And then there were the many nights, "after hours," with Frank....