Galt MacDermot holds a rare place in modern music history. He is the Canadian-American composer who, to Broadway fans, best represents the counterculture era with his music for Hair. But to record collectors, crate-diggers and hip-hop producers, MacDermot is something else: a prophet of the groove whose experimental sessions in the mid-1960s prefigure the rhythmic revolution of funk and R&B.

 

Born in Montreal in 1928, MacDermot earns a music degree from Cape Town University in South Africa. There, he develops a fascination with Duke Ellington while simultaneously absorbing the local sounds of Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela, and The Manhattan Brothers. 

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His breakthrough comes quite early with ‘African Waltz,’ which becomes a British radio hit when covered by bandleader Johnny Dankworth, and later earns him a Grammy Award as the composer when Cannonball Adderley's recording wins Best Jazz Composition. By the mid-60s, however, he realizes that the swinging British jazz sound is being overtaken by rhythm and blues. Connecting with producer Rick Shorter and an all-star cast of NYC session players, he begins working with the musicians who become known as his Mid-Manhattan Rhythm Section: drummer Bernard "Pretty" Purdie, bassist Jimmy Lewis, and rhythm guitarist "Snag" Napoleon Allen. Together with these jazz and R&B veterans, MacDermot lays down tracks that blend baroque melodies, African polyrhythms, and rock sensibilities.

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The Partnership with William Dumaresq

Most stories about Galt MacDermot understandably lead to Hair. Less attention is given to the creative partnership that quietly accompanies much of his career: author and librettist William Dumaresq. The two Canadians meet while living in London in the early 1960s and remain collaborators for more than two decades. Dumaresq supplies librettos, poems and lyrics, while MacDermot translates those words into music. Together, they write the West End musical Isabel's a Jezebel (1970) and create the screenplay and score for the 1971 British Film Institute cult film Duffer, based on Dumaresq’s unpublished novel. Their final collaboration, an adaptation of William Saroyan’s The Human Comedy, opens on Broadway in 1984. 

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It seems in Dumaresq, MacDermot finds a creative partner who brings out his quieter, moodier side. Dumaresq’s melancholic lyrics give him space to build raw, offbeat compositions—the very experiments that pave the way for songs like ‘Coffee Cold.’

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1966: Shapes of Rhythm

Early in his career, MacDermot launches his own imprint, Kilmarnock Records, to release his experimental instrumental creations without label interference. Kilmarnock is self-released (and self-financed) and is a playground for him and his core studio band. 

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One of Kilmarnock's earliest releases, 1966’s Shapes of Rhythm, captures the exact moment jazz morphs into funk. MacDermot plays acoustic and electric piano, and the album is locked down by the tight rhythm section of Purdie, Allen and Lewis. Lewis’s deep basslines and MacDermot’s piano work interlock naturally, moving from lively, calypso-esque numbers to quiet, reflective pieces. 

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Though Shapes of Rhythm is not heavily promoted upon its initial release, its musical footprint runs deep. MacDermot and his musicians catch the early wave of a global rhythmic shift—capturing a sound that would soon become central to funk.

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The Legacy of ‘Coffee Cold’

‘Coffee Cold’ is the highlight track on Shapes of Rhythm. The song's origins trace directly back to MacDermot’s friendship with Bill Dumaresq. In the early 1960s, the duo set one of Dumaresq's melancholic poems ("Coffee cold, brown and indifferent...") to MacDermot’s solo piano groove as one of their earliest musical tests. Wanting to record these folk-leaning vocal tracks without conflicting with his identity as a jazz composer, MacDermot creates a “warbly-vocaled alter ego” named Fergus MacRoy to sing Dumaresq’s lyrics. 

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However, it is the instrumental version recorded for Shapes of Rhythm—propelled by Jimmy Lewis’s bass and Bernard Purdie’s distinctive drum pattern—that becomes the track that outlives the album itself. ‘Coffee Cold’ delivers a smooth, yet undeniably funky tone that signals where late-60s soul and funk are headed.

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​​​​in loving memory of Kaan Tükel

Gülben - 08/2026

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📖 Eothen "Egon" Alapatt for RAPPCATS

📖 Stanley Dance for DOWNBEAT (Archives)

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