Guy Durosier Haitian Singer, Organist, Saxophonist, And Composer Died On August 19, 1999
Guy Durosier Haitian Singer, Organist, Saxophonist, And Composer Died On August 19, 1999
Born in Port-au-Prince, the capital, Guy Durosier started performing at age 14. In 1947 he began playing the clarinet with the school band at St. Louis de Gonzague School in Port-au-Prince. A few years later, he began to play professionally when he caught the attention of Issa Saieh, the maestro of the most famous orchestra in Haiti.
In a career more than 50 years long, Durosier also played the saxophone and composed music. Like most Haitian musicians, he had an eclectic style, ranging from big band sounds to Cuban music of the 50's. His genre reached even those who left Haiti too young to have known his music firsthand and those who were born in the United States to Haitian parents. His cross-generational appeal was evident when Durosier received a standing ovation after performing at Lincoln Center in June 1998 during a fund-raiser for the Haitian-American Alliance, a community group based in Brooklyn. Reviewers said Durosier outshone younger and more popular Haitian musicians like the singer Emeline Michel and the guitarist Beethova Oba.
In the 1960's Durosier settled in Paris and was a regular performer at the jazz club Mars, playing the saxophone, and was at the center of a growing intellectual and artistic Haitian community in Paris. After Paris, Durosier lived in Asia, then spent 15 years in Canada before settling in the United States a decade ago.
He wrote scores of songs and many, like "Her Name
Is Michaelle" and "My Brunette," became hits. However, his image suffered from his close alliance with Haitian dictators François (Papa Doc) Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude (Baby Doc) Duvalier, who ruled from 1957 to 1986, when the younger Duvalier fled to exile in France. In 1971 Durosier gave a special tribute at the elder Duvalier's funeral. "We thank thee François Duvalier for having given so much to us," Durosier sang. "You are great and beautiful and just. Up there in the skies you will watch over our Fatherland." During an interview in November with the magazine Haitiens Aujourd'hui, Durosier said that singing at the funeral was a matter of chance.
A memorial will be held in Bothell tomorrow. A concert tribute to Durosier will be held at Brooklyn College in New York on Sunday. The tribute will bring together musicians of his era like Joe Trouillot, Michel Pressoir, Egner Guinard and Raoul Guillaume
Guy Durosier, a versatile Haitian singer and organist whom Edith Piaf once called "the living
breath of Haiti," died at his home in Bothell, a suburb of Seattle. He was 68. The cause was complications from pulmonary cancer, said his son Robert.
