Rufus Harley, Jr. was born of mixed African-American and Cherokee descent, near Raleigh, North Carolina on May 20, 1936. His family moved to Philadelphia when Rufus was two. He bought a saxophone while in high school, and although family hardships forced him to leave school at 16, his enthusiasm for music was sustained by lessons on the saxophone, oboe and flute. During the 1950s, he played local clubs in Philadelphia's thriving jazz and blues scene. But it was in November 1963, haunted by the chilling wail of the Black Watch pipe band on the broadcasts of President John F. Kennedy's funeral, that Harley set off in pursuit of a very different tonal palette for a jazz instrument. Rufus Harley was the first jazz bagpiper.

Saxophonist John Coltrane was already developing split-note multi-phonic effects for the tenor saxophone, and some of Sonny Rollins' hoarse, braying sounds also suggested a distant relative of the bagpipes. Though Harley also attempted to explore these effects on the sax at first, he quickly came to the conclusion that Coltrane and Rollins had the field sewn up. A friend of Harley's, knowing of his interest in the pipes, saw a used set selling for $120 in a pawnshop and bought it for him. He hurled himself into the bagpipes' mysteries with help from Dennis Sandole, a local musician and teacher who had also encouraged Coltrane. Within months, Harley was playing local clubs, and in little more than a year he was recording his first album.

Harley made four albums for the Atlantic label between 1965 and 1969, performed in Francis Ford Coppola's 1966 comedy “You're a Big Boy Now,” appeared on the Johnny Carson and Bill Cosby television shows, once gave a bagpipe lesson to Muhammad Ali, and accompanied singer Laurie Anderson on her 1982 album “Big Science.” Harley continued to work into the 1990s, giving a solo concert at the Lincoln Center in 1993 and working with hip-hop band The Roots. His career included performances with many major jazz figures including Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Stitt and Herbie Mann.

Harley also lived an active parallel life as a community worker for Philadelphia's poor (for the city's Housing Authority) and tireless one-man campaigner for the tightening of gun laws. Rufus Harley, Jr. passed away on August 1, 2006 at the age of 70.

Here is a link to Rufus Harley, Jr. from a 1965 recording:

"BAGPIPE BLUES"