Obituary News

Stacy Rowles, Jazz Musician, is Dead at 54

Source: Michael Ricci
November 7, 2009

Stacy Rowles, a jazz trumpeter, fluegelhorn player and singer who had been active on the Los Angeles jazz scene since the 1980s, died on Oct. 27 at her home in Burbank, Calif. She was 54. The cause was complications from a car accident on Oct. 13, said her sister, Stephanie Rowles. The daughter of the jazz pianist and composer Jimmy Rowles, Ms. Rowles was perpetually under-discovered: better known in Europe than in America, and much better known on the West ...

Continue Reading

Centrum Founder Joe Wheeler Dies

Source: Seattle Jazz Scene
November 5, 2009

PORT TOWNSEND The founding Centrum executive director, Joseph F. Wheeler, died today at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle from complications relating to recently diagnosed cancer. Dr. Wheeler, who was 77, was surrounded by family members when he died, according to the nonprofit foundation that runs music and arts programs at Fort Worden State Park for more than 25,000 participants each year. Dr. Wheeler was a Wenatchee native who went on to play clarinet in swing bands in the Seattle ...

Continue Reading

Stacy Rowles Dies After Car Accident

Source: Michael Ricci
November 1, 2009

By Todd S. Jenkins Trumpeter and vocalist Stacy Rowles, a staple on the Los Angeles jazz scene, died on October 30, 2009, from complications following a car accident. Memorial information is pending. Stacy Rowles was the daughter of legendary pianist Jimmy Rowles, with whom she had recorded, and dancer Dorothy Rowles. Her brother, guitarist Gary Rowles, was a member of Love and Flo & Eddie; her sister Stephanie is an artist in Cambria, California. Stacy Rowles had been a member ...

Continue Reading

Harmonica Legend Norton Buffalo Dies

Source: All About Jazz
November 1, 2009

Blues harmonica virtuoso Norton Buffalo died Friday, following a brief battle with lung cancer.

Buffalo, 58, learned in September he had cancer and was attempting to beat the disease. Friends learned he went into a coma Thursday night and then died Friday afternoon, said Bill Bowker, a longtime Sonoma County DJ and music promoter and longtime acquaintance of Buffalos.

“He was really a master of the harmonica, said Bowker on Sunday. For years he was a mainstay of Sonoma County ...

Continue Reading

Roy Decarava, Harlem Insider Who Photographed Ordinary Life, Dies at 89

Source: Michael Ricci
October 29, 2009

Roy DeCarava, the child of a single mother in Harlem who turned that neighborhood into his canvas, becoming one of the most important photographers of his generation by chronicling the lives of its ordinary people and its jazz giants, died on Tuesday in Manhattan. He was 89 and lived in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. His death was announced by Sherry Turner DeCarava, his wife and an art historian who has written about his work. Mr. DeCarava trained to be ...

Continue Reading

Memorial Service for Leanne Butts to be Held Thursday, October 29

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
October 29, 2009

A memorial service for bassist Leanne Butts will be held at 1:00 p.m. Thursday, October 29 at St. Paul's Cemetery, 7600 S Rock Hill Rd. Butts died Wednesday, October 21 at age 49. Her obituary in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch did not list a cause of death.Leanne Butts performed jazz around the St. Louis area with Lee Hyde, After Six, Terry Thompson, her own trio, and various others. She earned a master's of music degree from Webster University, ...

Continue Reading

Lloyd Bartlett, Jazz Pianist and Former St. Louisan, Dead at Age 85

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
October 27, 2009

According to an article published today by the Arizona Daily Star, jazz pianist and former St. Louisan Lloyd Bartlett (pictured) has died of natural causes at age 85.Bartlett moved from St. Louis to Tuscon, Arizona “about a dozen years ago," the article said, and had continued to perform solo and with local groups including the Big Band Express until just a few days before his death.Lloyd Bartlett began his career as a professional musician in St. ...

Continue Reading

TV-Show Comedian Was a Hit with Pies and Sidekick Puppets

Source: Michael Ricci
October 25, 2009

Soupy Sales, 83, a loose-limbed comedian whose goofy skits, slapstick antics and pie-tossing shenanigans made him one of the country's most popular television stars of the 1950s and '60s, died Oct. 22 at a hospice in the Bronx, N.Y. He had a variety of health problems, but the cause of death was not reported. Mr. Sales gained early fame in the 1950s as the host of a daytime children's TV show in Detroit and always had a strong following among ...

Continue Reading