Galt MacDermot started Kilmarnock Records in 1960 while working as a studio musician in New York City. His first release, Art Gallery Jazz, was a cut of a live show he performed in an Art Gallery in Montreal. Notably, his trio’s version of his first “hit” African Waltz, which earned him 2 grammy awards for Jazz compositions is included on that record. Galt would eventually move to London after the success of African Waltz where he wrote and recorded his second album, The English Experience. Work proved hard to find in the U.K. so he packed up his family and moved to Staten Island, the forgotten borough of New York City.
For the next few years Galt would take the ferry into Manhattan every day to work as a studio musician and sell his compositions. He would meet many longtime friends and bandmates by doing so including Bernard Purdie, Wilbur Bascomb, Jimmy Lewis, Idris Muhammed, Charlie Brown, and Seldon Powell among others. These bandmates would be featured on his next few albums, Fergus MacRoy at the Homestead Upright, Foolish Lover, and Shapes of Rhythm. The latter included Galt’s seminal single and future jazz classic, Coffee Cold.
Towards the end of the decade, Galt was introduced to Gerome Ragni and Jim Rado who had written a musical and were looking for a composer. Together the three of them created HAIR, and the rest is Broadway history. The next Kilmarnock Records release was Haircuts, a live cut of Galt and his band playing instrumentals of some hits from HAIR. This was followed by Woman Is Sweeter, which was written as a soundtrack to Martine Barrat’s documentary on Yves Saint Laurent. It's one of Galt’s most known album and includes future sample fodder such as Space and Cathedral. The Nucleus, a compilation of some tracks Galt had written for independent films, followed. The classics, Bedroom, Golden Apples (I-III), and Duffer are all on this album.
Nowadays, we at Kilmarnock Records are still putting out Galt’s music. He left a lot of recorded songs and future hits in his basement that we continue to dust off and release for the musical benefit of humanity.