Nominated for 8 JUNO Awards
Through the early ’50s, Toronto-born jazzman, woodwind player and arranger Moe Koffman worked in the US. with bands led by Sonny Durham, Buddy Morrow, Jimmy Dorsey, Ralph Flanagan and Tex Beneke before returning to Toronto where he formed the Moe Koffman Quartet and subsequently recorded the international hit “Swingin’ Shepherd Blues” (1958). The song, which recently merited a BMI award for more tha one million performances logged, brought him international recognition as a flautist and he remains to this day one of the most in-demand session men in the business.
Koffman, whose recording career has continued through the ’90s, also spent close to 40 years as music director/booking agent for the renowned Toronto jazz venue George’s Spaghetti House until its closing in 1994. An officer if the Order of Canada since 1994, he has long been an integral part of fellow Hall of Fame inductee Rob McConnell’s big band, The Boss Brass.
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