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Margie Evans, Iconic And Sophisticated Queen Of The Blues, Dies At 81
Source:
All About Jazz
Margie Evans, a legendary, international Blues and Gospel entertainer, songwriter, music producer, actress, music historian, community activist and motivational spokeswoman, who broke barriers for African American female Blues performers with poise, dignity and sophistication, died on March 19, 2021. In addition to her musicianship, Evans is noted as an activist for parity in music education as well as a promoter of the legacy of Blues music. As she often said, “I’ve been around a long time and I’ve really paid ...
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Bertrand Tavernier (1941-2021)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Bertrand Tavernier, a French filmmaker who directed A Sunday in the Country, Life and Nothing But and, most notably, Round Midnight, a poetic film starring tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon and patterned after the last years of Bud Powell and Lester Young, died in Sainte-Maxime, France, on March 25. He was 79. Produced by Irwin Winkler and written by Tavernier and David Rayfiel, Round Midnight is widely regarded as a masterpiece in jazz storytelling. The 1986 film avoided the many cliches ...
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Freddie Redd (1928-2021)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Freddie Redd, a hard-bop pianist whose funk-driven, percussive style and sophisticated sense of harmony were reminiscent of Horace Silver but whose recording output seemed thinner than his initial promise, died March 17. He was 92. Born in New York and largely self-taught, Redd recorded sporadically in the 1950s as a sideman, disappearing for blocks of time while touring. In the decades that followed, Redd seemed to shy away from exposure. Two of his most important albums as a leader were ...
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Chris Barber, Giant of British Jazz, Dies at Age 90
Source:
The Last Music Company
Born in 1930, Chris Barber was one of the leading figures in European jazz. Together with Kenny Ball and Acker Bilk, he was one of the “Three B’s” who defined traditional jazz in Britain and spearheaded the “Trad” revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s. His interest in jazz began while he was evacuated from London during World War II, and he began collecting 78 records of his American heroes, becoming an expert on the early days of recorded ...
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Johnny Pacheco (1935-2021)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Johnny Pacheco, a bandleader who championed pachanga dance music in the late 1950s and co-founded Fania Records in 1964, a label that specialized in New York Latin music and paved the way for salsa in the late '60s and early '70s, died on February 15. He was 85. Pacheco was important for several reasons. While many New York Latin bands in the 1960s were exploring the boogaloo—a popular form of party dance music that combined the Latin tradition and soul—Pacheco ...
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Chick Corea (1941-2021)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Chick Corea, one of the most spirited and heralded jazz keyboardists and composers of the rock era who launched a mystical form of psychedelic jazz fusion in the early 1970s that influenced a generation of young musicians, died on February 9. He was 79. Chick was enormously prolific. Not a day went by that he didn't spend hours at the piano writing and recording in his studio. When he wasn't in the studio, he was performing tirelessly on the road, ...
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Phil Spector (1939-2021)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Phil Spector, a record producer, songwriter and co-founder of Philles Records whose “wall of sound" studio formula launched a new, influential approach to pop-rock orchestration in the early 1960s, died at the California Health Care Facility in Stockton on January 16 at age 81. He was 11 years into a 19-year prison sentence for killing actress-model Lana Clarkson in 2003 with a gun in his home just hours after meeting her at a club. Known for his eccentricity, cruelty, egomania ...
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Junior Mance (1928-2021)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Junior Mance, a pianist and early proponent of church-infused soul-jazz who played and recorded with nearly all of jazz's post-war greats before beginning a leadership career in 1959, died on January 16. He was 92. Junior's playing channeled both urban gospel and rural spirituals and hymns, resulting in a style that exuded introspective soul. Junior's brand of sensitive bop and jazz was honed under the tutelage of spectacular soloists and blues singers. Even as a trio leader in the '60s ...
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